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BITS OF TRAVEL, 



By H. H., 

AUTHOR OF "verses," " BITS OF TALK ABOUT HOME MATTERS,' 

"bits of TALK FOR YOUNG FOLKS," " BITS OF TRAVEL 

AT HOME," AND "nELLY's SILVER MINE." 







BOSTON: 

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. 

1898. 



'. '~T9« 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, 

BY JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO., 

in thte Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



yd:,' 



1 « « 



University Press: John Wilson & Son, 
Cambridge. 



I 



I 



CON-TENTS. 

♦— 

Page 
A German Landlady 1 

The Yalley of Gastein 34 

The Ampezzo Pass and the House of the Star 

OF Gold 62 

A May-Day in Albano 82 

An Afternoon in Memoriam, in Salzburg . 89 

The Returned Veterans' Fest in Salzburg . 95 

A Morning in the Etruscan Museum in the 

Vatican . . . . . . . .103 

Albano Days . Ill 

A Sunday Morning in Venice . . . .117 

The Convent of San Lazzaro, in Venice . 124 

Encyclicals of a Traveller . . . .131 



PEEFATOKY NOTE. 



I AM very glad that the many friends my good 
Fraulein has made for herself in America can 
now see her face. 

I have only recently received this picture with its 
affectionate greeting in her delicious broken English, 
and I make haste to share the pleasure that it has 
given me. 

H. H. 
Newport, R. I., May 7, 1873. 



ILLUSTEATIONS. 



A German Landlady ..... Frontispiece. 
Valley and Village of Gastein. . . Page 50 



A GERMAN LANDLADY. 



PART I. 

IT was by one of those predestinations which men 
call lucky chances that I came to know the Frau- 
lein Hahlreiner. An idle question put to a railway 
acquaintance, and in a moment more had been spoken 
the name which will stand in my memory forever, call- 
ing up a picture of the best, dearest, j oiliest landlady in 
all G-ermany. 

Up two such flights of stairs as only victims of mon- 
archies would consent to chmb we toiled to find her. 
There was a breeze of good cheer in the first opening 
of her door. 

" Is the Fraulein Hahlreiner in ? " 

'^I are she," laughed out of the broad red lips and 
twinkled in the pretty brown eyes. The rooms were 
just what we wanted. Who could have believed that, 
while we were journeying sadly away from beloved 
Tyrol, there stood waiting m the heart of Munich just 
the beds, the sunny windows, the cheerful parlor, that 
would fit us? The readiness of one's habitations is a 
perpetual marvel in the traveller's life* it is strange we 
can be so faithless about accommodations in the next 

1 A 



2 A GERMAN LANDLADY, 

world, when we are so well taken care of in this. It 
took few words to make our bargain, and few hours 
to move in ; in a day we were at home, and the big, 
motherly Fraulein understood us as if she had nursed 
us in our cradles. How her presence pervaded that 
whole floor! There were thirteen rooms. A Grerman 
baron with wife and two children, to whom he whis- 
tled and sang and shouted twelve hours a day, like a 
giant bobolink in a meadow, had some of the rooms. 
Two mysterious Hungarian women, who were secret 
and stately and still, and gave dinners, lived on the 
corner; and we had all the rest, except what was 
kitchen, or cupboard, or the Fraulein's bedroom. 

It is wonderful how soon it seems proper to have 
kitchen opposite parlor, unknown neighbors the other 
side of your bedroom wall, dishes washed on the hall 
table, and charcoal and company coming in at same 
door. When we learn to do this in New York, there 
will be fewer deaths from breaking of bloodvessels in 
the effort to be respectable. 

No artist has ever taken a photograph of the Frau- 
lein Hahlreiner which could be recognized. Neither 
can I photograph her. I can say that she was five feet 
seven inches high, and fat to the degree of fatness 
which Rubens loved to paint ; that she was fifty-two 
years old, and did not look as if she were more than 
forty ; that she had hazel brown eyes, perpetually 
laughing, a high white forehead, two dimples in her 
left cheek which were never still, and hair, as fi:"ee as 
the dimples, too long to be called short, too short to be 
called long, always floating back m the air as she came 
towards you : on great occasions she had it curled by a 
hair-dresser, — the only weakness I ever discovered in 
the Fraulein ; but it was such a short-lived one, one 
easily forgave it, for the curl never stayed in more than 
two hours. I can say that, in spite of her fatness, her 
step was elastic and light, and her hands and feet deh- 
cately shaped ; I can say that her broken English wa» 



A GERMAN LANDLADY. 3 

the most deliciously comic and effectively eloquent lan- 
guage I have ever heard spoken ; I can say that she 
cooked our dinner for us at two, went shopping for or 
with us at five, threw us into fits of laughter at eight 
by some unexpected bit of mimicry or droll story, and 
then tucked us up at bedtime with an affectionate 
" Grood night. Sleep well ! " But after all this is told, 
I have told only outside truths, and given little sugges- 
tion of the charm of atmosphere that there was about 
our dear Fraulein and everything she did or said. 

The Munich days went by too quickly, — days in the 
Pinakothek, days in the Grlyptothek, days in the Art 
Exposition, with its two thousand pictures. We had 
climbed into the head of the statue of Bavaria, roamed 
through the king's chambers at the Nymphenburg, seen 
one hundred thousand men on the Teresina meadows, 
and the king giving prizes for the horse-races; and 
now the day came on which we must leave Munich 
and each other. 

My route lay to the north, — ISTuremberg, Rhine, 
Rotterdam, London. For many days I had been in 
search of a maid to go with me as far as Rotterdam. 
The voluble Madame Marksteller, who supports a 
family of ten children, and keeps them all in kid gloves 
and poodles by means of an intelligence ofiice, swept 
daily into my room, accompanied by applicants of all 
degrees of unsuitabihty. It grew disheartening. Finally 
I was reduced to the choice between a pretty and 
young woman, who would go with me only on condi- 
tion of being my bosom companion, and an ugly old 
woman, who was a simpleton. In this crisis I ap- 
pealed to the Fraulein. 

" Dear Fraulein, why could not you go with me 
to Rotterdam ? " 

'' my dear lady, you make me go to be like fool, to 
thmk of so nice journey," said she, clapping one hand 
to her head, snapping the fingers of the other, and 
pirouetting on her fat legs. 



4 A GERMAN LANDLADY, 

But all sorts of lions were in the way: Ipdgera, 
whose dinners must be cooked. 

"I will pay the wages of a cook to take your place, 
my Fraulein." 

A country cousin was coming to make a visit ; a 
cousin whom she had not seen for twenty-five years. 
She might stay a week. 

'• Very well. I will wait till your cousin's visit is over." 

" But, my lady, I fear I make stupid thing for you. 
I knows not how to do on so great journey." 

" Ha ! " thought I, '' I only wish I were as safe from 
stupidities and blunderings for the rest of my life as I 
shall be while I am in your charge, you quick-witted^ 
bright-eyed old dear ! " 

The country cousin, I fear, was hurried off a little 
sooner than she liked. 

" I tell she she must go. My lady cannot wait so 
long. Six days in Munich are enough for she," said 
the Fraulein, with a shrug of the shoulders which it 
would have cut the country cousin to the heart to see. 

On a windy noon, such as only Munich knows, we 
set out for Nuremberg. If I had had any misgivings 
about the Fraulein's capacity as courier, they would 
have been set at rest in the first half-hour at the rail- 
road station. It was evident that anything she did 
not know she would find out by a word and a smile 
from the nearest person : all were conciliated the min- 
ute they looked into her ruddy face. And as for me, 
never in my life had I felt so well presented as by the 
affectionate tone in which she said " My lady." 

Trusting to Murray, I had telegraphed to the Wiir- 
temberger Hof for rooms. At nine o'clock of a dark 
night the G-erman crowd in the Nuremberg station 
lifted up its voice, and said there was no Wurtember- 
ger Hof. 

" There must be," said I, brandishing my red Mur- 
ray, with my thumb on the spot. Crowd chuckled, 
and said there was not. 



A GERMAN LANDLADY. 5 

*' my lady, wait you here while I go and see," said 
the Fraulein, bundling me into a chair as if I had been 
a baby. Presently she came back with, " My lady, 
she do not exist these now four years, the Wiirtem- 
berger Hof. We go to the ISTuremberger Hof, which 
are near, and he have our telegram." 

Out into the darkness we trudged, following a small 
boy with a glass of beer, and found, as the Fraulein 
had said, that the ISTuremberger Hof had received our 
telegram, and had prepared for us two of the cleanest 
of its very dirty rooms. How well I came to know 
my Fraulein before the end of that rainy day in Nu- 
remberg ! 

" my lady, am I to go where you go and see all ? '' 
she exclaimed in the morning, when I told her to be 
ready at nine to drive with me. " 0, never did I think 
to see so much." She had evidently had in the outset 
a fear that she would see little except at the railway 
stations and hotels. She little knew how much pleas- 
ure I anticipated in her companionship. 

They are cruel who tell you that a day is time enough 
to see Nuremberg. It is a place to spend two weeks 
in ; to lounge on doorsteps, and peer into shadowy 
places; to study old stones inch by inch, and grow 
slowly wonted to all its sombre picturesqueness. 

As we stood looking at Peter Yischer's exquisite 
carvings on the shrine of St. Sebald's, I pointed out to 
the Fraulein the bass-relief representing St. Sebald's 
miracle with the icicle. She looked with cold, steady 
eyes at the finely chiselled fire which was represented 
curhng upward from the little pile of broken icicle, and 
then said, " Do you believe, my lady ? " 

" no, Fraulein," said I ; " I can't quite believe that 
icicles ever made so good a fire as that, even for a 
saint. But I suppose you believe it, do you not ? " 

" no, I not. The Church ask too much to believe. 
If one would beheve all, one cannot do," said she, in a 
tone of timidity and hesitation quite unusual for her; 



6 A GERMAN LANDLADY. 

and a moment later, still more hesitatingly, ^' Have you 
read Renan, my lady ? " 

I started. Was this my German landlady, who 
spent most of her time over her cooking-stove, asking 
me if I read Renan ? '' Yes," I said, " I have read 
most of his books. Have you ? " 

'^ yes, and I like so much. My confessor he say 
he no more give me — " (here she halted : the long 
word ^^ absolution " was too much for her, and she made 
a sweeping gesture of benediction to indicate it), — "he 
no more give me — so — if I not put away that book ; 
80 I go not to him, now, two year, because I will not 
make lie." 

" But then you are excommunicated, are you not, if 
you have not been to confession for two years? " 

" Yes, I think," cheerily, quite reassured now that I 
must be as much of a heretic as she, since I too read 
Renan ; " but I will not make lie. I will have my 
Renan. Then I read, too, the book against Renan ; 
and he say St. Paul say this, and St. Peter say the 
other, but he go not to my heart. I love the Jesu 
Christ more by Renan as in what the Church say for 
him." 

Strange enough it was to walk through the still 
aisles of these old churches, and, looking up at the 
dusty stone saints, to whom incense is burned no 
longer, hear this simple soul repeat over and over, 
with great emphasis, " I love the Jesu Christ more 
by Renan as in what the Church say for him." 

Then we went down into the old dungeons under 
the Rathhaus, through chilly winding galleries, into 
stone chamber after stone chamber, rayless, airless, 
pitiless, awful. The Fraulein grew white with hor- 
ror. She had never beheved the stories she had 
read of torture-chambers and dungeons. 

" Ach, mein Gott ! mein Gott ! and this is what 

might be to-day if Father had the way ; and 

they tell us we Jose the good old times. I will 



A GERMAN LANDLADY. 7 

tell to all peoples I know I have seen the good old 
times under the ground of this Niirnberg ! " 

When we came out again into the open air, she 
was so pale I feared she would be ill. She sat down 
trembhng on the stone stairs, and drew a long 
breath : " Ach Grott ! but I am thanks to see once 
more the overworld." 

It was almost wicked, after this, to take her to the 
still worse dungeons under the city walls, which are 
literally hung and set full of instruments of torture, 
and in the last of which is kept the famous Iron 
Virgin. In the first chambers were milder instru- 
ments for punishments of common offences, many of 
which have been used in Nuremberg within seventy 
years, — grotesque masks to be worn on the street by 
men and women convicted of slanderous speaking (" Ha, 
ha!" laughed the Fraulein, 'Hhe're could not be made 
enough such masks to be weare'd in Munich ") ; and a 
curious oblong board with a round hole at each end, 
into which husbands and wives who quarrelled were 
obhged to put their heads, and live thus yoked for days 
at a time. This pleased the Fraulein greatly. " Think 
you, my lady, this would be good ? " she said, sticking 
her fat fist through one of the holes, and opening and 
shutting it, — " think you they would love theirselves 
(each other) more ? " 

But her smiles soon died away, and she was paler 
than in the Rathhaus dungeons. This great hearty 
woman, usually ruddy as a frost-bitten apple in De- 
cember, and stronger than most men, grew white and 
trembling at the first look at the horrible instruments 
of torture with which the other chambers were filled. 
Indeed, it was a sight hard to bear, — racks and wheels 
and pulleys and weights and thumb-screws, helmets 
and cradles and chairs set thick with iron spikes, and 
at last, in the lowest dungeon of all, the Iron Virgin. 
I held the poor Fraulein's hand. For the minute I was 
the protector, and not she. The woman who was our 



8 A GERMAN LANDLADY, 

guide recited her story with such gUb professional 
facihty, and pulled out bars, and shoved back the 
doors, and showed the sharp spikes, all with such a 
cheery smile, that to me it robbed the cruel stone 
statue of much of its atmosphere of the horrible. I 
even felt a morbid impulse to step into the image's em- 
brace and let the spiked doors be partly shut on me ; 
but for the Fraulein's sake I forbore, and hurried her 
out as quickly as possible into her '' overworld." 

" 0, never would I live in this Niirnberg, my lady," 
she said ; " at each step I see ghost ; and see color of 
that water," she added, pointing to the sluggish river : 
" it are black with the old sins." 

How she laughed the Nuremberg jewellers into sell- 
ing me oxidized silver cheaper than they meant to ! 
How she persuaded the stolid Nuremberg " cocher " to 
drive faster, at least ten times faster, than was his 
wont! And how, most marvellous of all, she con- 
vinced the keeper of the Nuremberg cemetery where 
Albert Diirer was buried, that it could do no harm for 
me to bring away a big bunch of bright sumac leaves 
from one of the trees ! I should as soon have thought 
of appealing to one of the carved Baumgartner burgh- 
ers on their stone slabs to give me permission ; but the 
Fraulein was too much for the keeper. He turned his 
back, so as not to seem to condone the offence, and 
satisfied his conscience by calling out, '' Enough, enough, 
you have taken enough," several times before we were 
ready to stop picking. How quickly she saw and how 
keenly she felt the best things ! Not a line of Adam 
Kraft's or Peter Vischer's carving was lost on her. 
Not a single picturesque face or group escaped her. 
Much more I saw, in that one day of Nuremberg, for 
having her by my side ; and very short I found the 
next day's railroad ride to Mayence, by help of her 
droll comments on all that happened. 

Curled up in one corner were a fat old G-erman and 
his wife, and opposite them an officer with his young 



A GERMAN LANDLADY, 9 

bride. The officer and the burgher talked incessantly 
with great vehemence. I saw that the Fraulein lis- 
tened witli keenest attention ; it was evidently all she 
could do to keep quiet. At the first opportunity she 
said to me : — 

" my lady, he are ultramontane, the fat man ; he 
are Senator ; they talk always about our government. 
I like so much to hear what they say ; but the fat man, 
he are such fool." 

The Senator's wife looked like a man in woman's 
clothes, — hard-featured, bony, hideous. As night 
came on she proceeded to make her toilet ; she took 
off her boots, and put on huge worsted shoes, bound 
with scarlet ; on her head she put a knit cap, of 
cranberry red; above that, the hood of her gray 
waterproof; above all this, a white silk handkerchief, 
tied tight under her chin ; on top of all, her 
round hat. The effect was like nothing in earth 
but a great woollen gargoyle. The Senator looked 
on as complacently as if it were the adorning of 
Yenus herself 

" my lady, have you seen what she make for 
mouth when she speak ? " said the Fraulein. I had 
not, for we were on the same side of the carriage. 
'' My lady, you must see. I will make that she speak 
for you," said the malicious Fraulein, drawing nearer 
to the unsuspecting victim, and asking some question 
in the friendliest of voices. I forgave the unchristian 
trick, however, at sight of the mouth in motion. 

After the Senator and the officer had both left 
the carriage, the Fraulein told me the substance of 
their discussion ; political questions seemed familiar 
to her ; she had her own opinion of every candidate ; 
and 0, how she did hate the ultramontanes ! "0 
my lady, this Senator he wish to have for president 
a man who make always his walk backwards. Never 
he go forwards." 

It took me some seconds to comprehend that this 



lo A GERMAN LANDLADY. 

was the Fraulein's English for a conservative^ the 
thing she hated with her whole heart. 

The sun shone brightly on the fields and woods. 
She exclaimed with delight at each new mile : " 0, 
how I like to see smoke go up from house ! " 

"0, find you not the world nice, my lady? I find 
so nice, I could kiss the world. Always people say, 
this world are bad world. The world are good 
world. It are mens that are bad." 

Then she would startle me again by farmer-like 
comments on the country. - 

" 0, here are all such poor wood country ; I would 
cut down such poor wood, and make land for other 
thing. 

" Now begin to be more good stone, here. 

" look, my lady, what nice farm with much mead- 
ow for coos." (Never could I persuade the Fraulein 
to say cows.) 

At last I said to her: Fraulein, you talk like a 
farmer." 

'' Ach, my lady," and her face grew clouded, " I 
make farm for eleven year. I am great farmer. That 
is all what I love. 0, I could die, some time, I 
such hungry have for my beautiful farm." 

By this time I was prepared to hear that my 
Fraulein had at one time or another in her life filled 
every office for which G-erman towns have an opening, 
from burgomaster down ; but that she had been a 
farmer I never suspected. 

" You must tell me, Fraulein, all about it, when we 
are on the Rhine. We can talk quietly there." 

'^ Yes, my lady, I tell you. It are like story in 
book." 

For a few moments she looked dreamily and sadly 
out of the window ; but her nature had no room for 
continued melancholy. Soon she began to laugh again, 
at sight of the slow, ditch-like Main, on which un- 
wieldy boats and sloops were wriggling along. 



A GERMAN LANDLADY, n 

'^ my lady, this river go all the way as if he think 
each minute, ' I go no farther. ' " 

Match that who can for a hit at a sluggish river. 

At one of the stations I saw her talking with a con- 
ductor on another train bound back to Nuremberg. 

^' I ask for my cousin. He are ober-conductor on 
that train. I send him note. He can see me when I 
come back. He will be in Heaven when he get my 
note." And her face twinkled more like the face of 
fifteen than of fifty. I looked inquiringly. 

'* He are my cousin ; but I love he not ; but he 
write me every year, for tirteen year, ' Will you marry 
me ? ' and I write to he : ' Thank you, thank you, but 
I think not to marry you, nor any other man. Live 
well, live well.' And he speak no more, till come same 
time next year ; but always he say to all peoples, that 
he will me marry. He wait till I be glad of he. But I 
think he wait till I die. And his mother she hate me, 
because she wish that he had wife to take he out of her 
house. He make her cry so much, so much. He is 
so — how do you say, my lady, when peoples is all 
time like this ? " and in an instant she had utterly 
transformed her face, so that she could have passed 
any police officer in the world, however he had been 
searching for her, so cross, so glum, so hateful did she 
become from eyebrows to chin. Never off the stage, 
and rarely on it, have I seen such power of mimicry 
as had this wonderful old Fraulein. 

'' He are always like that, my lady, all time, morning, 
noon, night, all year; and he say every day to his 
mother, ^ Hold tongue ! I will not have wife, if I can- 
not have Caroline.'" This last sentence she pronounced 
with a slow, sullen, dogged drawl, which would have 
made the fortune of an actress. 

'^ Fraulein," I said, '' you ought to have been an 
actress." 

" Yes, my lady, I think, " she repHed, as simply as 
a child, with no shade of vanity in her manner. '' I 



12 A GERMAN LANDLADY. 

would be rich woman now. When I was a child, a 
great manager in Augsburg he ask my grandfather to 
give me to study with his daughter. He say I make 
good, and be great player ; but in those days no people 
liked artists like to-day, and my grandfather he are so 
angry, and he say, ' Gro away ; come no more in my 
house.' " 

Thus laughing and hstening, and looking out on the 
pleasant meadows of the Main, we came to Mayence, 
ftnd at Mayence took boat to go down the Rhine. 
This was the Fraulein's first sight of the Ehine. All the 
tenderness and pride and romance of her true GTerman 
£Oul were in her eyes, as the boat swung slowly round 
from the pier, and began to glide down the river. And 
now began a new series of surprises. From Mayence 
to Cologne there was not a ruin of which my Fraulein 
did not know the story. Baedeker was superseded, 
except for the names of places ; as soon as I mentioned 
them to her she invariably replied, " yes, I know ; 
and have you read, my lady, how," etc. The Johannis- 
berg Castle, given to Metternich by his Emperor, the 
cruel Hatto's Tower, the Devil's Ladder, the Seven 
Yirgins, the Lurley, the Brothers, Rolandseck and Non- 
nenwerth, — she knew them all by heart ; and for the 
sake of hearing the time-worn old stories, in her de- 
licious broken English, I pretended to have forgotten all 
the legends. Nothing moved her so much as the sight 
of the two rocky peaks on which the two brothers had 
lived, and looked down on the Bornhofen Convent in 
which their beloved Hildegarde was shut up. 

*' 0, each brother, he could see her if she walk in that 
garden," she said, with tears in her eyes. "Now, it come 
no more that a man love so much, so long so true." 

Just beyond the Brothers we passed the great Ma- 
rienburg water-cure. Reading from Baedeker, I said : 
" Fraulein, that would be a cheap place to hve ; only 
twelve thalers a week for board and lodging and med- 
ical attendance." 



A GERMAN LANDLADY. 13 

*' no, my dear lady. It are not cheap, for there be 
nothing to eat. At end of eight day the man from Was- 
sercure he shall be so thin, so thin, it shall shine the 
gun through him." 

Throughout our whole journey the Fraulein's aston- 
ishment was unbounded at the poor fare and the high 
prices. In her beautiful goodness, she had supposed 
that all landlords were content, as she, with moderate 
profits, and anxious, as she, to give to their guests the 
best food. 

" my lady, find you this chicken good ? " 

" Not very, Fraulein. What is the matter with it ? " 

''0, the bad man, the bad man, to ask for this 
chicken one gulden. He are old chicken, my lady, 
and he are boiled before he are in oven. 0, I know 
very well. 0, I win much money by this journey; 
never before had I courage to give old chicken. Now 
I give ! " 

Much I fear me that from this time henceforth the 
lodgers in my dear Fraulein's house will not find it 
such a marvel of cheap comfort as we did. 

'' my lady," she said one day, ^4f you come again 
to me, you shall all have as before. But to other peo- 
ples, I no more give beefsteak for fifteen kreutzers. I 
will be more rich, I have been ass." 

By dint of the Cologne and Diisseldorf fine of steam- 
boats, and the Netherland steamship line, and endless 
questioning and unlading and lading, the Fraulein and I 
and the trunks at last came to land at Rotterdam. We 
had a day at Cologne, a night at Diisseldorf, and one 
never-to-be-forgotten night on the river. At Diissel- 
dorf, we wandered about the streets for an hour and a 
half seeking where to lay our heads. Here the poor 
Fraulein had on her hands, besides me, an English 
barrister and his wife, who could speak no G-erman, 
and who drifted very naturally into our wake. What 
a procession we were at eleven o'clock of the darkest 
sort of night, nobody knowing just were he was going, 



14 A GERMAN LANDLADY. 

each person thinking somebody else was taking the 
lead ! Suddenly the porters ahead of us plumped our 
trunks down in the middle of the street at the feet of 
two men with lanterns. 

" Really, aw, now this is, aw, the most extraordi- 
nary place for a custom-house, aw, 'pon my honor," 
said the English barrister, whose name was not Dun- 
dreary. 

'•'' Have you meat or sausages ? " said the biggest 
man, flashing his lantern-light full into our dismayed 
faces. " mercy, no ! " shouted we with bursts of 
laughter, and such evident honesty, that he let us go, 
contenting himself with punching the sides of all the 
carpet-bags. 

" Fraulein, did you tell that man you had no sau- 
sages ? " said I, sure she could not have eaten up the 
six I saw her buy at Cologne. 

" My dear lady, he say, ' Have you meat or sausage ?' 
and I say, 'No, I have no meat' I not make lie, I 
make diplomatique." 

From Diisseldorf to Rotterdam it was a day and a 
night and half a day. The Rhine stretched broader 
and broader. The shores of Holland seemed slowly 
going under water, and the windmill arms beat the 
air wildly like struggling arms of drowning monsters. 
It was as cold as winter in the cabin : and it rained 
pitilessly on the deck. The poor Fraulein read all the 
magazines which I had bought for her in Cologne, and 
an old comic almanac which she borrowed from the 
steward, and at last curled herself up in a corner and 
went to sleep in despair. The night differed from the 
day only in being a little colder and darker, and in the 
Fraulein's having a red-flannel petticoat over her head. 
When I waked up and saw her pleasant great face in 
this ruddy halo of fiery flannel, I felt as comforted as 
if it had been a noonday sun. 

It was at noon of a Thursday that we came, as I 
said, to land at Rotterdam; but this is hardly the 



A GERMAN LANDLADY, 15 

proper phrase in which to describe arriving at a place 
which is nine parts water. Venice seems high and 
dry in comparison with it; and the fact that you go 
about in boats at Venice, and in cabs at Eotterdam, 
only serves to make the wateriness of Rotterdam more 
noticeable. 

" my lady, it are all one bridge from one water to 
another water," said Fraulein, as we drove up and 
down and across canal after canal to find the house of 
Moses Ezekiel, the Jew, who is a money-changer. It 
rained dismally, but the Dutchwomen were out on all 
the doorsteps, with pails of water, scrubbing and wiping 
and brushing and rinsing, with cloths and mops and 
brooms, as if they were enchanted by some soap-and- 
watery demon. Windows shone like mirrors; door- 
handles glittered like jewels. 

" 0, how they do are clean, these Dutch ! " said 
the Fraulein, taking account with a housekeeper's eye 
of all this spotlessness. 

How sorry I grew as the hour came for me to say 
good by to this dear, honest, droll, loving woman I 
cannot tell. The last thing she did for me was to look 
at the sheets in the dreary little berth in which must 
be spent my one night between Rotterdam and Lon- 
don, and to say with great indignation to the sui'prised 
stewardess. " Call you those sheets clean, in English ? 
Never my lady sleep in such sheets, from Munich to 
Rotterdam. 0, but I think a steamschifif (boat) are 
place for bad peoples to be punish for sin ! " 

Then she cried over me a little and went away. I 
watched her till she had shut the cab door, and was 
being whirled off to take the early train for Munich. 
Then I too shed a few tears, saying to myself, " God 
bless the old darling ! I shall never see her like again." 

The story of the Fraulein's life I feel a hesitancy 
about telling. It stands out so in my memory in its 
quaint, picturesque, eloquent broken English, tliat to 
try to reproduce it is like trying to describe one of 



1 6 A GERMAN LANDLADY, 

Teniers's pictures of peasant life. But nothing, not 
even the dulness of grammatical speech, can rob it of 
all its flavor of romance, and no one but myself will 
know how much it loses in my hands. 



PART II. 

Her father was a Suabian hunter, and one of the 
king's rangers. Her mother was a daughter of a 
subaltern officer. There were ten children, of which 
my Fraulein and her twin brother were the youn- 
gest. They were poor but gay, living a free life in 
the woods, with venison for dinner every day. When 
the little Caroline — for now I must give her her 
name — was three years old her father died ; but she 
never forgot him, remembering to this day, she says, 
more vividly than almost anything else in her life, how 
he used to come home in his ranger's uniform, and tak- 
ing her on one arm and her twin brother on the other, 
toss them both up in the air, calling her his little 
" rusty angel," in affectionate jest at her freckled skin. 

One year later the mother died, and the ten children, 
left with very little money, were scattered here and 
there, in houses of friends and relatives. Caroline was 
sent to her paternal grandfather, who was a govern- 
ment advocate in Augsburg. The grandmother had 
written that she would take the handsomest of the six 
little girls, and the lot fell on Caroline. 0, what a pic- 
ture it was she drew of her arrival, late at night, at 
the fine house in Augsburg ! She was carried, a poor 
little frozen bundle of baby, into a great parlor, where 
her grandparents with a small party of friends were 
playing whist. The servant set her on the piano 
while they unrolled her wrappings, one after another, 
for it was a cold winter night. 

*' Then at last out came I ; and they stand me up on 
the piano, and my grandmother she say, ^Mein GrottI 



A GERMAN LANDLADY. 



17 



if this be the handsome, what are the rest?' And 
one old servant, — and she I hate all my life, — she 
put both her hands high, and she say, ' Mein Grott, she 
have red hair and rusty skin ! ' " 

In a few days, however, the little red-haired, rusty- 
skinned child became the pet of the whole house ; and 
from this time till her grandmother's death Caroline was 
happy. But before she was six she had become such 
an unmanageable little hoyden, that her grandparents, 
m despair, shut her up in a convent school in Augsburg, 
only allowing her to come home for Saturdays and 
Sundays and the vacations. In this school she spent 
seven years, and came out, at thirteen, a full-grown 
woman, knowing a little of many things, but no one 
thing well, and too full of animal life to be held with 
any bonds. That very year came her first lover, ask- 
ing to marry her. 

'' My grandfather, he send for me, and I come, like I 
go always on one foot, jumping like cat for bird ; and 
there sit this man I know not ; and my grandfather he 
point to me, and he say, 'You think to marry that 
child? Look at her! '" I am sure that the Fraulein 
was too modest to tell me how beautiful she was as a 
young girl. But I can easily make the picture for my- 
self She was above the medium height, and very 
slender; her cheeks were red, her forehead high and 
white ; her eyes the brightest and wickedest hazel, and 
her mouth and chin piquant and wilful and tender and 
strong, altogether. Not often does the world see just 
such a face as she must have had in her youth. 

The next year the grandmother died, and now be- 
gan dark days for Carohne. Two of her aunts, who 
had not loved her father, came to keep her grand- 
father's house. They locked up her piano. They took 
away the pretty clothes her grandmother had given 
her. They gave her more and more hard work to do, 
until in one short year she was like a servant in the 
house. Then they sent her away to another aunt's 



18 A GERMAN LANDLADY. 

house, on pretence of a visit, and kept her there 
three months ; and when she returned, she found that 
her grandfather, who was now very old and imbecile, 
had married a new wife. 

" Now came for me the worst of all the time. My 
grandfather's wife, she say, ' You must not stay here, I 
will not have, you are too fine lady. You can go earn 
your bread like others.' And I say, ' 0, what can I 
do ? I nothing know, where can I go ? ' And, my 
lady, I are only fifteen when she tell me to go make 
living for myself." 

The grandfather was too old and feeble to interfere, 
and moreover had been prejudiced against Caroline by 
his wife and daughters. So the child went out into 
the world, with a little bundle of clothes and a few 
gulden in her pocket. She had about one hundred 
dollars a year from her father's estate, which luckily 
was in the hands of a trustee, or the cruel aunts would 
have robbed her of that. A kind neighbor took her 
in, and tried to cheer her ; but her heart was broken. 
^' All day, my lady, I cry and I cry, till I look so ugly 
nobody would take such ugly girl to live in house for 
servant. My face get quite another shape." 

At last the good neighbor came home one day in 

great delight, and told Caroliue that the Baroness 

had seen her in church, and liked her face so much 
that she had asked her name, and now sent to know 
if she would come and live with her as nurse for her 
three little children. 

" This are like help from Heaven, my lady ; and 
when I go to Baroness, she take me by chin, and 
she say, * Would you like to live in my house ? ' 
And I cry so, I can no more speak, and I say, ' 0, 
I glad of any house, so I have home.' " 

For three years she lived with the Baroness, who 
proved a kind and wise mistress. The little children 
were sweet and lovable, and ''I think I stay in 
that house till my time come to be died," said the 



A GERMAN LANDLADY. 



19 



Fraulein, with tender wet eyes. But one day came a 
sharp, authoritative letter from her grandfather, order- 
ing her to return home at once. 

^'I get great afraid, I think he wish to me kill, 
and I would not go; but the Baroness say, 'No, 
he are your grandfather, you must go.' So I go, 
and my grandfather he look at me with such angry 
eyes I am sick, 1 cannot stand up ; and he say, 
*The Baron love you too much. You are vile, bad 
girl. You go no more to his house. I will you 
shut up.' " 

Cruel, idle tongues had done poor Caroline this 
harm. Probably the scandal rose from the careless 
jest of some thoughtless man or woman, who had ob- 
served the beautiful face of the young nursery-maid in 
the Baron's house. " I should make lie, my lady," 
said the Fraulein here, " if I say that the Baron speak 
ever to me one word not like my father. He good 
man." 

After a few wretched weeks in the grandfather's 
house Caroline found a second home in the family 

of the Countess of Augsburg. Here she lived 

for seven years as lady's-maid to the old Countess, 
who loved her much. ''But the young Countess, 
she iove me not. She hate me. It are like cat 
see dog always when we see each other, we so 
hate ; but my old Countess, she say always to me, 
' Caroline, have patient, have patient ; for my 
sake go you not away.' " At last came a day when, 
for some trifling provocation, the young Countess 
took Caroline's two ears in her noble hands, and 
jerked her head violently back and forth, until the 
girl could hardly see. 

"Many time, my lady, I say to her, ^Take your 
hands away, I will not from any man this bear ' ; 
and at last, my lady, I make so," said the Frau- 
lein, hitting out from the shoulder with a great 
thrust which a prize-fighter might admire, "and she 



20 A GERMAN LANDLADY. 

go back against the wall; and the old Count, he 
come flying and scream, 'You kill my daughter, 
you shall to prison go.' And he put his hand on 
me, and I make so again, my lady, that he go 
back against the other wall. 0, I was strong like 
one hundred men! And my poor old Countess she 
come with her two hands tight, and she cry, '0 
Caroline, Caroline, be not like this ; go not away 
Iromi me.' And I say to her, 'My dear lady, I 
no more can bear. I go away to-night'; and I go 
to my room, and in middle of my angry I stop 
to laugh, to see the old Count like he pinned to 
the wall where I put him with my one arm, and 
the young Countess like she pinned to the other 
wall, where I put her with my other arm." 

In an hour Caroline had packed her boxes, and 
was ready to leave the house, but she found her- 
self a prisoner in her room. The door was firmly 
locked, and to all her cries she could get no answer. 
All night long she walked up and down with her 
bonnet and cloak on. At eight in the morning the bell 
rang as usual for her to go to the Countess. "Ha ! " 
say I, "the old Count he think I go to my lady, 
for her I so love. But I open my door, I have heard 
he come like cat and unlock with key ; and I go 
straight to big door of great hall ; and at door stand 
old Count, and he say, ' What mean you ? Gro to the 
Countess.' And I say, ' No, I go no more to Coun- 
tess, I go to burgomaster. And I look at he so he 
no more dare move. I think," with a chuckle of 
delight at the memory, "he no more wish to feel 
^how heavy are my hand, for he are poor little man. 
T could him kill, like chicken, and so he know very 
well." 

Straight to the burgomaster the excited Caroline 
went, and told her story. For once a burgomaster 
was on the side of right; reprimanded the Count 
severely, and compelled him to give up all Caroline's 



A GERMAN LANDLADY. 21 

Iboxes, and pay her the full sum due of her wages. 
Now sne was, for the first time for many years, thor- 
oughly happy. She had saved money in her seven 
years' service, and she had become a skilful dress- 
maKer. She hired a little apartment, and sent for an 
old servant who had been fond of her in her child- 
hood. 

Old Monika was only too glad to come and live 
once more with her young mistress; and as for Caro- 
line, after ten years of serving, to be once more 
independent, to have an affectionate waiting-woman 
ready to do her bidding, — " it was like Heaven, 
my lady. In morning, Monika she bring me my 
bath, like I lady again ; and she say, ' Fraulein, my 
Fraulein.' And I make my eyes like I sleep, sleep, 
so that I can hear her say ' my Fraulein ' many times, 
^t so me please. Then she be fear that I died ; and 
she come close and take me by shoulder ; and then 
I give jump quick out of bed, and make her great 
fright and great laugh. But always I eat with my 
Monika, as if I not lady, for I say, I too have been 
servant; and I cannot eat by self; I have not hun- 
gry ; and I love my old Monika very much." 

The good Countess sent all her friends to Caroline, 
and in a short time she had more dressmaking than 
she could do, even with Monika's help; but she would 
not employ workwomen. She tried the experiment 
once, and had a seamstress for three months, but she 
could not endure the trouble and annoyance of it. " 
my lady, I get in such great angry with she, she make 
so stupid things. I send she away. I think I be died 
with angry, if she not go." 

It was, after all, but a bare living that one woman's 
hands could earn with a needle in Augsburg, in those 
days. Caroline and her Monika had only about two 
hundred dollars a year. 

" IIow could you live on so little money, dear Frau- 
lein? ' said I. 



2 2 A GERMAN LANDLADY, 

^^ my lady, in those time all are so cheap. I get 
pound of meat for nine kreutzers, now it are twenty. 
I get quart milk for three kreutzers, now it are five. I 
get nine eggs for four kreutzers, now I must pay two 
kreutzers for one egg ; and in Augsburg then I buy for 
one kreutzer all vegetable Monika and I eat for two 
day, and now in my house in Munich I give six kreut- 
zers for what I must give one person at one time." 

Even at these low prices they had to hve sparingly : 
one half-pound of meat three times a week ; never 
anything but coffee and bread for breakfast; once a 
week a glass of wine. But Carohne was happy and 
content. " Never did I think to ask Grod for more 
than I have. I are so glad with my Monika ; and I 
sing at my sew all day." 

But fate was spinning a new tint into Caroline's life. 
In the spring of her third year of dress-making she 
found herself seized with a sudden ambition to go to 
Munich and get new fashions. 

^' It are great journey for me to take alone; and I had 
not money that Monika go too ; I know I need not to 
go ; but I cannot be free night nor day from thinking I 
will to Munich go, and get fashion for my ladies." 

On the fourth day after her arrival in Munich the 
poor solitary Augsburg dress-maker was taken ill with 
a terrible fever. In great fright, the lodging-house 
keeper had her carried to the hospital, and gave her- 
self no further concern about the friendless stranger. 
There poor Caroline lay in a crowded ward, so delirious 
with fever that she could not speak intelligently, and 
yet, by one of those inexphcable mental freaks some- 
times seen in such cases, quite aware of all which was 
passing about her. She heard the doctors pronounce 
her case hopeless ; she knew when they cut off her 
beautiful hair, but she tried in vain to speak, or to 
refrain from speaking when the mad raving impulse 
seized her. 

At length one night, the third night, between twelve 



A GERMAN LANDLADY, 



23 



and one o'clock, she suddenly opened her eyes, and 
saw a tall man bendmg over her bed, with a candle in 
one hand. 

^^ my lady, never can I tell what I saw in his 
face; never, my lady, have you seen so beautiful face. 
I say to myself, ' 0, I think I be died, and this are the 
Jesu Christ; or if I not be died, this are my darling for 
all my life.' And he smile and say, ' Are you better? ' 
And I shut my eyes, and I say to myself, ' I will not 
speak. It are Jesu Christ.' " 

This was the young Dr. Anton , who had been, 

from the moment Caroline was brought into the hospi- 
tal, so untiring a watcher at her bedside, that all his 
fellow-students persecuted him with raillery. 

^' But my Anton he say to them, ' I do not know 
what it are, I think that beautiful girl ' (for, my lady, 
all peoples did call me beautiful ; you would not now 
think, now I am such ugly, thick, old woman), — 'I 
think that beautiful girl die. But if she not die, she 
are my wife. You can laugh, all you ; but I have no 
other wife in this world. ' " 

It was in very few words that my Fraulein told me 
this part of her story. But we were two women, look- 
ing into each other's wet eyes, and I knew all she did 
not say. 

They could not be married, Anton and Caroline ; for 
the paternal government of Bavaria, not liking to have 
too large pauper families left on its hands, forbids men 
to marry until they can deposit a certain sum in gov- 
ernment trust for the support of their families, if they 
die. Anton had not a cent in the world : neither had 
Caroline. For four years they worked and waited, he 
getting slowly but surely into practice ; she, laying by 
a gulden at a time out of her earnings. Once in four 
weeks he came to Augsburg to see her, sometimes to 
stay a day, sometimes only a few hours. " It took so 
much money for journey, he could not more often come. 
But he say, ^My Hebling, I may die before we can 



24 ^ GERMAN LANDLADY. 

marry; I will "make sure to kiss you once in four 
week.' " 

There was, perhaps, a prophetic instinct in Anton's 
heart. Before the end of the fourth year his health 
failed, and he was obliged to leave Munich, and go 
home to his mother's house. For six months Caroline 
did not see him. Week by week came sadder ana sad- 
der letters. Anton was dying of consumption. At last 
his mother wrote, '^ If you want to see Anton ahve, 
come." 

At sight of Caroline he revived, so much so that the 
physicians said, if he had no return of hemorrhage, he 
might possibly live three months ; longer than that he 
could not hold out. 

cruel, paternal government of Bavaria ! Here 
were this man and woman, held apart from each other, 
even in the valley of the shadow of death, by the hu- 
mane law providing against pauper children. 

The one desire left in Anton's heart was to be moved 
to Augsburg, and die in Caroline's house. He and his 
mother were not in sympathy ; the family was large and 
poor; he was in the way. Then Caroline said, ^'Come." 

" my lady, you think not it was harm. His moth- 
er she go on knees to me, and say, ' Take Anton with 
you.' And I know I can keep him alive many weeks 
in my house; he will be so glad when he are alone 
with me, he will not die so soon. No one could speak 
harm of me, for this man I lead like little child, and lift 
in my arms, he are so sick." 

So Caroline gave up her apartment in Augsburg, 
hired a little farm-house just out of the city, and took 
her lover home to die. The farm was just large enough 
for her to keep two cows and raise a few vegetables. 
The house had but one good room, and that was fitted 
up for Anton. Caroline and Monika slept in two Uttle 
closets which opened from the kitchen. Before day- 
light Monika went into the city to sell milk and vege- 
tables ; while she was gone Caroline took care of the 



A GERMAN LANDLADY. 25 

stable and the animals, and worked in the garden. 
Not one kreutzer's worth of work did they hire. The 
two women's hands did all. 

In the sweet country air and in the sight of Caroline, 
Anton grew daily stronger, until at the end of three 
months he could walk a few rods without leaning on 
her arm, and hope sprang up once more in their hearts. 

Then, lured by that illusive dream, which has cost so 
many dying men and women so dear, they started for 
Italy to escape the severe winter winds of Augsburg. 
They went in a little one-horse wagon, journeying a few 
miles a day, resting at farm-houses, where the brave 
Caroline took care of her own horse, like a man, and 
then paid for their lodging by a day's dress-making for 
the women of the family. In this way they spent two 
months ; but Anton grew feebler instead of better, and 
when they reached home Caroline lifted him in her 
arms, and carried him from the wagon to the bed. 

'• When I lay him down, he look up in my face with 
such look, and he say, ' Liebling, it are no use. I have 
spent all my money for nothing. Now I die.' " 

The journey, cheaply as they had made it, had used 
up every kreutzer of the earnings which had been put 
by towards their marriage. Now they had nothing, 
except what Caroline could earn, with now and then a 
little help from Anton's mother. But Caroline's heart 
never failed her; she thought of but one thing, the 
keeping Anton alive. 

" All day, my lady, it are as if I see Death stand at 
door ; and I look at him in eyes, and I say, ' You go 
away ! I give not Anton to you yet. Jesu Christ, 
let me keep my Anton one day the more.' " 

And she kept him day by day, until the doctors said 
his life was a miracle ; and Anton himself said to her 
sometimes, '^ liebling, let me go ; it is better for you 
that I die." 

At last the day came, but it was nearly at the end of 
the second year. It was late in the spring. Anton 



26 ^ GERMAN LANDLADY, 

had not left his room for weeks ; but one morning he 
said to her that he thought he would like to sit under 
the trees once more. 

'^ And, my lady, the minute he say that, I know 
he think it are his last day. So I dress him in warm 
clothes, and I carry him out in my arms, and put him 
in big chair I make myself out of old died tree ; and the 
sun it shine, shine, so warm ; and I read to him out 
of book he like. But I see he no more hear, and very 
quick he say, ' Come close to me ' ; and I go close, and 
he put his two hands on my face and say, ^ Liebling, I 
think Grod be always good to you for your good to 
me.' And then he point with finger that I take him 
in house ; and Monika and I we have but just get him 
in bed, when he fall back, and are died in one minute ; 
and, my lady, I can say true, that in the first minute I 
was glad for my Anton that he have no more pain." 

Soon after Anton was buried came Anton's second 
cousin, Herr Bridmacher, to see Caroline. The Herr 
Bridmacher owned a great farm of seven hundred acres 
near Starnberg. By this time all Anton's friends, far 
and near, had heard of the faithful and beautiful Caro- 
line, who had so well administered the little farm, and 
made Anton's last months so comfortable. Herr Brid- 
macher offered her good wages and absolute control of 
the farm. It was the very Hfe she most liked, and it 
offered an escape from Augsburg, the very air of which 
had become insupportable to her. She accepted the 
offer immediately, and at the end of a week was walk- 
ing by Herr Bridmacher's side, up the broad road of 
Brentonrede farm. 

*' my lady, my heart he go down in me when I see 
that farm. The Herr Bridmacher he have been fool. 
He have the same thing in the same field all his life, 
till the ground be no more good ; and he are so mean, 
he have on that seven hundred acre only seven ser- 
vant; he have four coos, three horse, and two pair 
oxen, and one are lame. And the house, it be sham© to 



A GERMAN LANDLADY. 27 

see such house ; it let water come in in many place ; 
and the floor it go up, and it go down, like the cellar 
are all of hills. And I say to him, ' It are well for 
you, Herr Bridmacher, that I not see your fine farm 
before I come. But I have my word given, and I go 
not back. I stay.' Then he begin to make great com- 
pliment to me, how he think I do all well. But I say, 
' 0, thank you, I not wish to hear. You think to jour- 
ney, you have me told. The sooner you go, the better 
I like. Grood night, sir.' So I go to my bed; but all 
night the wind he blow my windows so I cannot to 
sleep ; but I say to myself, ' Caroline, if only that fool 
go away, here are splendid farm for you.' So I am 
quite quiet. And in the morning, Herr Bridmacher he 
say, ' GrOod morning, good morning. I start to Italy 
to-morrow'; and I say, 'I very glad to hear that. You 
stay two years, I hope.' And when he go down the 
road I stand at door, and I snap my two hands after 
he, and I say, ' Long journey to you, my master.' " 

With short intervals of interruption and annoyance 
from Herr Bridmacher, Caroline had the management 
of Brentonrede farm for eleven years. At end of that 
time Brentonrede owned seventy-five cows, eight 
horses, eight pairs of oxen, twenty-four calves, and 
two hundred chickens* There were twenty-five work- 
people, — seventeen men and eight women. The 
house was in perfect repair, and the place had more 
than doubled in value. Just before Caroline came to 
him the poor silly Herr Bridmacher had offered it for 
sale for sixty thousand gulden (about twenty-five 
thousand dollars) ; after she left him he sold it for one 
hundred and forty thousand gulden. 

It would be impossible to reproduce the Fraulein's 
graphic and picturesque story of her life daring this 
time. She had no neighbors, but she was never lonely. 
Her whole soul was in her work. At three o'clock 
every morning she rose, and gave the laborers their 
first meal at four. Five times a day they were fed, the 



28 A GERMAN LANDLADY. 

Brentonrede people : at four in the morning, bread, 
soup, and potatoes ; at eight, bread and milk, or bread 
and beer; at eleven, knoedels,* with which they had 
either meat, pudding, or curds ; at four, bread and beer; 
and at six or eight, bread and soup. 

One of her greatest troubles in the outset was the 
religiousness of her work-people ; — the number of 
Paternosters they insisted on saying every morning in 
the little chapel on the place. 

^' my lady," she said, "I wish you could see that 
chapel. Such a Mother G-oddess never did I see in my 
life. She look so like fool, that when I go first in I 
make that I drop something on floor I cannot find, so I 
put my face close to floor, that they not see me laugh. 
But I make she all clean ; and I make chapel ah clean ; 
and then I say to men, ' Very well ; if you need pray 
fourteen Paternosters on week-day, you need pray 
fourteen Paternosters on Sunday. So many as you 
pray on week-day, it are my order that you pray on 
Sunday, if you work at Brentonrede.' Then they 
grumble, and they tell the priest. They like not to 
take time that are their own time on Sunday to say 
fourteen Paternosters ; but they like better to say 
Paternosters in my time than to dig in field. So the 
priest he put on his big hat, and he come to door, and 
knock, knock ; and I go ; and he say, ^ Are you the 
Fraulein of Brentonrede ? ' And I say, ' Yes, Father, 
I are she.' And then he begin to say, 'JSTow, my 
daughter,' with long face; and then he tell me that he 
are told I have pigs in the chapel, and that I will not 
let the people to pray. And I say, ' no, that are not 
true.' And I take he to chapel, and show how clean it 
are ; and only I have in corner two big bottle of vitriol, 
which I have afraid to keep in house, because it are 
such danger ; and I tell him I think Holy Mother Grod- 

* Knoedels are dumplings made of flour, chopped herbs, and 
sometimes a little ham. They are the common food of farmers 
throughout Germany. 



4 GERMAN LANDLADY. 29 

dess will be so good to keep it safe, that it blow not 
up the house. And he say that are no harm, but why- 
do I not let the people to pray. And I tell him that I 
say not the people shall not pray. I say they shall pray 
fourteen Paternoster on Sunday, if they pray fourteen 
Paternoster on week-day ; and since then they pray 
but one Paternoster on week-day, so that they take 
not time from their Sunday. And he scratch his head 
very hard, and know not what to say me to that ; and 
then I give him good bottle wine and a cheese, and I 
say, ' Now, Father, it cannot be in this world that we 
believe all what are telled. I do not believe what are 
telled of you, and do you not beheve any more what 
are telled of me.' And he get red in the face, for 
he know all peoples say his housekeeper are wife to 
he ; and so he shake my hand, and he go away. And 
always I hear after that he say, ' The Fraulein of Bren- 
tonrede she are good woman ; she are good Catholic' 
But he know in his heart I laugh at he." 

How she gloated over some of her harvest memo- 
ries, — of wonderful afternoons in which more loads 
of hay were piled up in Brentonrede barns than had 
ever been known to be got in in one afternoon be- 
fore. One particular wheat harvest, I remember, she 
mentioned. She had seen at noon that a heavy storm 
was coming up. Whole acres of wheat were lying cut, 
ready to be made up into sheaves. " Then I call all the 
men and women, and I say, ^If all the wheat are in be- 
fore dark, I give you one cask beer, and two cheese, 
and all bread you can eat, and a dance.' I think not it 
could be ; but I work with them myself, and I tie up 
with the straw till my hands they bleed, 0, so much ; 
but I nothing care. And the wheat it are all in, my 
lady, before nine o'clock, — twenty-five wagon-loads 
in one afternoon ; and in all the country they tefl it 
for one great story that it was done in Brentonrede." 

The Brentonrede farm soon became well known in 
the whole region about Starnberg. Herr Bridmacher's 



30 



A GERMAN LANDLADY, 



friends used to make it a stopping-place in their drives •, 
and the Fraulein often entertained parties of them at 
tea or luncheon. She was very proud of doing the 
honors of Brentonrede ; and to these parties, and to 
her tv^o years of close intercourse v^ith the inyahd 
Anton, she owed a certain savoir faire^ which, added 
to her native gracefulness and quickness of compre- 
hension, would prevent her ever being embarrassed, I 
think, in any situation. 

In the tenth year of her Brentonrede life came a bur- 
gomaster from a neighboring town to ask her to marry 
him. By this time her love for Anton had taken the 
healthful shape of tender, regretful memory, which 
made no sorrow in her active, useful life, and set no 
barrier between her and other men. But her heart 
was wedded to Brentonrede farm. So, like a true di- 
plomatist, she told Herr Bridmacher of this offer and 
asked his advice. 

''I know very well he not like that I leave farm. 
He know he cannot make farm by heself. I think he 
will marry me heself, to keep me for farm. I not love 
he. no, my lady, I love no man after my Anton. But 
I know he go on journey every year, sometimes for two 
three year, and I think I like very well to be his wife, 
and stay on farm while he go." 

The Herr Bridmacher took the same view of it that 
Caroline did. Of course he could not have her leave 
the farm : so he said he would marry her when he 
came back from Italy, — from a year's journey on 
which he was about starting. The burgomaster was 
sent away, and Caroline went contentedly on with her 
farming for another year. When Herr Bridmacher 
returned, and their marriage was again discussed, the 
question of settlements came up, and upon this they 
fell out. Caroline was firm in her demand that Bren- 
tonrede should be settled on her and her children. 

^' I know very well, my lady, that all his people fine 
people. They think I am only poor work-girl who can 



A GERMAN LANDLADY, 31 

make farm. Never I wish to go as his wife into one 
of their house. It are only for love of farm that I 
marry he ; if he die, and I not have farm, what I do 
then ? " 

But Herr Bridmacher was equally firm. He would 
settle money on her, but not Brentonrede. Money 
Caroline would not have, not even if it were enough to 
buy another farm. It was Brentonrede she loved, and 
she did not in the least love Herr Bridmacher. " I 
know all the time he are fool, and like mule, beside," 
she said; adding with the gravest simplicity, "But I 
know he have been for ten year the most time away 
from Brentonrede, and I think when I are his wife he 
like it not even so much than before." 

So Caroline and Herr Bridmacher parted in great 
anger. With her savings she bought a little house in 
the suburbs of Munich. But the city air oppressed her. 
Her occupation was gone. At end of a year she sold 
the house for two thousand gulden more than she gave 
for it, and bought another, farther out of the city, with 
a few acres of ground about it. Here she lived as she 
had in Augsburg, keeping one servant, ^ three cows, 
hens and chickens, and working all day in a vegetable 
and flower garden. 

" my lady, it are like one picture, when I have 
work there one year. Not one inch in all my place 
but have a fine green leaf or flower growing on he; 
all peoples that drive by from Munich, they stop and 
they look and they look, and I are so proud when 
T hear them say, ^ It are all one woman that do this 
with her own hands.' " 

One afternoon as the Fraulein sat alone in her little 
sunny parlor, there was a ring at the door. 

" I go, and I see, such nice Englishman ! I have 
he seen before, many times, stands to look in my gar- 
den. He are priest I know by his dress, — priest of 
your church, my lady. Then he say, ' Do you live 
here alone ? ' And I say, ' Yes.' And then he try to 



32 A GERMAN LANDLADY, 

say more, but he cannot G-erman speak, and I no Eng- 
lish understand. So he laugh, and he say, ' I come 
again with my wife. She can all say in G-erman.' " 

The next day he came back with his wife, and the 
thing they had to say was no more nor less than to tell 
the Fraulein they were coming to spend the summer 
in her house. Her face and the face of her garden had 
been such magnets to them, that their hearts were set 
on coming to live for six months where they could see 
both every day. 

^'I say, ' But I know not how to do for high people. 
T cannot make that you have comfortable.' But they 
5ay, ^ We will you show all. We want little.' And 
so they come. They take my two rooms up stairs; 
and they sit all day in my garden ; and the lady, she 
grow so fat, and she say she are never so happy in aU 
her life, as in my house ; and they are, now these seven 
years, my best friends in the world." 

These best friends of the Fraulein's were an Eng- 
lish clergyman and his wife ; and her acquaintance 
with them was one of the crises in her romantic life. 
In the autumn when it was necessary for them to 
go back to Munich, they persuaded her to sell her 
little farm (which was not so profitable as pretty) 
and take part of a house in the city, and rent apart- 
ments. She entered with many misgivings on this 
untried experiment ; but her shrewd, sagacious na- 
ture was as successful here as in remodelling Herr 
Bridmacher's exhausted farm. She has lived in Mu- 
nich for seven years. Her apartment has never, for 
one month, stood empty, and she is only waiting for 
the opportunity to add to it another whole floor. She 
has nearly paid for her furniture, which is all thor- 
oughly good and satisfactory, and she says, '^ If I 
spare (save) very much and spend not on nothings, 
I think in six year I have enough money to go live as 
I like in country, and have garden." She yearns for 
green fields, and the smell of the earth. I am not sure 



A GERMAN LANDLADY. 33 

that the English clergyman did well to transplant her 
within the city walls. 

As for Herr Bridmacher, he came to grief, as might 
have been predicted, soon after parting with Caroline. 
After several unsuccessful attempts to find some one to 
fill her place, he sold his farm for one hundred and 
forty thousand gulden, put most of the money into a 
commercial speculation and lost it. 

The good Caroline, hearing a short time ago that he 
was seen in Munich looking very shabby and out at 
elbows, wrote asking him to come to her house. 

" I could not bear, my lady, to think that I so com- 
fortable in this nice house by the money he pay me, 
and he have not money enough to go hke gentleman as 
he always go before ; and now I are old woman, I can 
ask to my house if I like." 

But Herr Bridmacher was too proud to come. 

" He hate me. I hear from friend that know, that 
he hate me, so much ! He say I are reason for all 
his trouble. But I think he are reason heself. Ex- 
cept for he had been one mule, I are in his house to- 
day, and Brentonrede are worth three hundred thou- 
sand gulden, and he have six children to make that 
he are no more sorry." 

Poor Herr Bridmacher ! From my heart I pity him, 
when I think what he has lost. But I have almost 
more resentment than pity, when I think that, but for 
his foolish pride and obstinacy, my Fraulein would 
have been to-day the loving mother of children, and the 
gracious Lady of Brentonrede. 



2* 



THE VALLEY OF GASTEIN. 

GASTUNA tantum una," — '' Only one aastein," 
— said the old archbishops of Salzburg, hun- 
dreds of years ago. '' Only one Grastein," echoes to- 
day on lips and in hearts of all who are so fortunate 
as to find their way into its enchanted valley. 

'' From Salzburg to Bad-Grastein, by Hallein and 
Werfen 70-^ English miles, a journey of ten hours with 
post-horses " ; " Route two hundred," in Murray's 
Gruide-Book ; that is the skeleton of the story. Even 
at Murray's best spinning, he only takes six pages to 
tell it, and probably there have been people who did 
the whole journey in ten hours. Bodies might; but 
for souls what a horrible spiritual indigestion must fol- 
low quick on the taking at one ten-hours sitting the 
whole feast of this road ! 

We did better. People who do just as we did will be- 
gin by losing their temper at six o'clock in the morning 
with the cross chambermaid of the Groldener SchifFin 
Salzburg, eating a bad breakfast in its dirty dining- 
room, taking delighted leave of its inexperienced land- 
lord, and galloping out of town at seven to the tune 
of one of Mozart's old melodies rung on chime-bells. 
The great Salzburg plain is a goodly sight of a morn- 
ing; circling meadows for miles, walled at last by 
mountains which are so far and so green that it is not 
easy to believe them six or eight thousand feet high ; 
through the meadows the sluggish Salzach River; in 
the middle of the meadows, and on the river, the shin- 
ing Salzburg town; in the middle of the town, high 
up on a rocky crag, the silent Salzburg castle, gray, 



THE VALLEY OF GASTEIN. 



35 



tnrreted, and sure to last as long as the world. Those 
old Archbishops of Salzburg knew how to live. Wher- 
ever one comes upon traces of them, one is impressed 
with their worldly wisdom. The impregnable castle 
of Salzburg for a stronghold, with the Monchsberg for 
pleasure-grounds, a riding-school cut out of solid rock 
for exercise, Heilbrunn water-works for amusement, 
and the Baths of G-astein for health and long life, — 
what more could these jolly old King Coles ask, ex- 
cept the privilege to kill all who disagreed with them ? 
And that little privilege also they enjoyed for some 
years, enlarging it by every possible ingenuity of cruel- 
ty, as many stone dungeons with racks and oubliettes 
still bear witness. 

Four hours steadily up, up. Franz does not urge 
his horses so much as he might. The nigh horse has 
no conscience, and shirks abominably on the hills. At 
last I venture to call Franz's attention to the fact, by a 
few ill-spoken G-erman substantives and adjectives, 
with never a verb or a particle to hold them together. 
" Ja, ja," he says, with unruffled complacency ; but 
pointing to the poor off mare, who is straining every 
muscle in drawing three quarters of the load, " she is 
a good one; she can pull," touching her up smartly 
with the whip at the same time. We cross the Sal- 
zach, which grows muddy and rough, fighting bravely 
to bring down all the logs it can ; we leave the won- 
derful Diirrenberg Mountain with its three-galleried 
salt-mine, and we march steadily out towards the Tan- 
nengebirge, which looks more and more threatening 
every minute. Clouds wheel round its top. We know, 
though we try not to believe, that storms are making 
ready : they never look, not they, to see who or what 
they may drown or hinder. Down the rain pours, and 
we dash dripping into the basement story of the inn at 
GoUing. It was like an Italian inn ; carriages, and horses, 
and donkeys, and dogs, and cocks, and peasants, and 
hay, and grain, and dirt, and dampness, all crowded 



36 THE VALLEY OF GASTEIJV, 

under and among damp arches of whitewashed stone, 
with only two ways of escape, — the low, broad door 
through which we had driven in, and the rocky stairs 
' up into the heart of the house. How pitilessly the 
rain fell ! Who of all the gods cared that we wanted 
that evening to see the waterfall of the Schwarzbach, 
the finest in all the G-erman Alps, and that if we did 
not see it then we should never see it, because early 
the next day we must on to Gastein ? Still it rained. 
Why should one not see a waterfall in a rain ? They 
would not put one another out. This was clearly the 
thing to be done. Ah, how long the poor damp man, 
who took me in an einspanner to see that waterfall, 
will remember the smihng, merciless American, who 
sat silent, unterrified, and dry, behind the stout leather 
boot, and went over meadow, through gate, across 
stream, up gully, in the midst of thunder and lightning 
and whirling sheets of rain, and never once relented in 
her purpose of seeing the Schwarzbach ! Poor fellow ! 
he shifted from puddle to puddle on his low seat, look- 
ing furtively at me to see if I really meant to keep on ; 
at last, in a climax of despair, he stood up, emptied the 
cushion of water, coiled up the ends of the stout leath- 
er reins edgewise into a kind of circular gridiron, sat 
down doggedly on it, and never looked around again 
till we reached the end of the road. Here his triumph 
began ; for was not he to stay warm and comfortable 
by a friend's fire, while I went on foot the rest of the 
way to the waterfall ? This I had not understood be- 
fore leaving the inn. ^' Was it very far ?" 
" no, not far." 

I never saw a Tyrolese man or woman who would 
say that a place was far ofif. You might as well expect 
a goat or a chamois to know distances. ^' no, not 
far, only a little," they say ; and you toil and toil and 
toil, and sit down a dozen times to rest, before you are 
half-way there. However, if he had said it was e^er 
so far, I should have kept on. 



THE VALLEY OF GASTEIN, 37 

'^ There was a path ? " 

" yes " ; and here out skipped Undine to go and 
show it to me. I did not need her, for there wound 
the prophetic httle brown path mqvj plain among the 
trees ; but it was a dehght to see her flitting along be- 
fore me. Bare-footed, bare-legged, bare-headed, bare- 
necked, bare-armed, she did not lack so very much of 
being bare all over ; and I do not suppose she would 
have minded it any more than a squirrel, if she had been. 
She looked back pityingly at me, seeing how much 
my civilized gear hindered me from keeping up with 
her, as she sprang from tree-root to tree-root, and 
hopped from stone to stone in the water, — for in many 
places the path was already under water. On the 
right hand foamed the stream, not broad but deep, and 
filled with great mossy boulders which twisted and 
turned it at every step : on the left, fir-trees and larch- 
es and still more mossy boulders. Every green thing 
glistened, and trickled, and dripped; moss shone like 
silver: and bluebells — ah, I think I alone know just 
how bluebells manage in wet weather! Nobody 
else ever saw so many in one half-hour of glorious 
rain. 

Soon I heard the voice of the fall ; a sudden turn in 
the path and I saw it ; but I looked for the first few 
seconds more at Undine. She stood, poised hke a bird, 
on an old tree-stump, pointing to the fall, and gazing 
at me with an expression of calm superiority. The 
longer I looked the more inscrutable seemed the water- 
fall, and the wiser Undine, till I felt as I might in stand- 
ing by the side of Belzoni before an Egyptian inscrip- 
tion. How well she understood it, this httle wild 
thing as much of kin to it as the bluebells or the pine- 
trees ! But while I looked she was gone, darting up a 
steep path to the left, and calling me to follow. There 
was more, then ? Yes, more. wonderful Schwarz- 
bach Fall ! It will mean little to people who read, 
when I say that it shoots out of a cavern in two dLa- 



38 THE VALLEY OF GASTEIJV. 

tinct streams ; they blend in one, which falls one hun- 
dred and sixty feet between craggy rocks, takes a 
cautious step or two, wading darkly under a natural 
bridge of giant rocks and pines, and then leaps off one 
hundred and seventy feet more in one wide torrent, 
with veils of silver threads on each side, and a never- 
ceasing smoke of spray. 

Even destiny itself winces a little before a certain 
sort and amount of determination. Finding me actu- 
ally face to face with the waterfall, and as thoroughly 
wet, the storm stayed itself a little, and rent the clouds 
here and there for me to look off into the grand dis- 
tances. No sunny day could have given half such de- 
light. This fall is supposed to be an overflow from the 
Lake Konigsee, in Bavaria; but nobody knows; it 
hides its own secret. 

Next morning we kept up a running fight with the 
rain through the Pass Lueg, past the great gorge Oefen, 
" not to be missed," said Murray. JSTeither did we 
miss it, clambering down and in under umbrellas. It is 
an uncanny place, where thousands of years ago the 
Salzach River cut a road for itself through mountains 
of rock, and never went back to see what it had left. 
Scooped out into arched and moulded hollows, piled 
up in bridge above bridge, damming up half the river 
at a time and then letting it fly, there stand the giant 
rocks to this day only half conquered. Yellow timbers 
from the mountains were being whirled through, now 
drawn under as if in a maelstrom, now shot swift as 
huge arrows over ledges of shppery dark stone. 

In the Pass Lueg was just room for the river and us ; 
and if it had not been for shelves of plank here and 
there, the river would have had all the road. This 
pass is called the '' G-ate of the Pongau." A very hard 
gate to open it would be to an enemy, for the solid 
rocky sides of the mountains have been wrought into 
fortress walls full of embrasures, whose guns one would 
think must be worked by elf-men in the heart of the 



THE VALLEY OF G A STEIN, 39 

mountain, so little foothold seems there for human 
gunners. 

At Werfen, just beyond the pass, we struck the 
track of the old Salzburg Archbishops again : the great 
castle of Hohenwerfen, three hundred and fifty feet up 
in the air, on a wooded crag overhanging the Salzach 
Eiver, was another of their strongholds, and was used 
chiefly for a prison, being within easy reach of one of 
their favorite hunting-lodges, in the Bliihnbachthal val- 
ley, only a few hours back ; so when they were tired of 
huntmg chamois at Bliihnbachthal they could ride 
down to Hohenwerfen and torture a few Protestants. 
Now, a company of Austrian sportsmen owns the 
lodge, and the castle of Hohenwerfen is used for bar- 
racks of Austrian soldiers. 

At Werfen we contracted friendship with a shoemak- 
er, who, with his wife, three children, and three ap- 
prentices, lives, sleeps, and sews in one stone chamber, 
up three flights of stone ladder, a few doors from the 
inn. I can recommend him as a good man who will 
put a new heel to an old boot and no questions asked. 

Just beyond Werfen we passed a panorama of mill 
privilege never to be forgotten; eight tiny brown 
wooden mills, one close above the other, on the side 
of a hill, and the white stream leaping patiently over 
wheel after wheel, all the way to the bottom of the 
hill, like a circus-rider through hoops. What could 
decide men bringing grain to be ground, whether to go 
to the top or the bottom mill? It seemed that the 
eighth miller up, or down, must stand a poor chance 
of business. 

From Werfen to our bedroom at Schwarzach we did 
not cease to exclaim at the beauty of the fields and road- 
sides. Everybody's house looked comfortable ; every- 
body's wife was out tying up wheat or pulling flax : 
everybody else was wearing a high hat and feather and 
a broad gay belt, and sitting in the sun smoking; 
though, to be just, we did see here and there an odd- 



40 THE VALLEY OF GASTELN. 

looking man at work. Hollyhocks ruled the gardens, — 
superb stalking creatures, black and claret, and white, 
and rose-pink and canary-yellow, — and all as double 
as double could be. Crowded along the roadsides, the 
forever half-awake bluebells nodded and nodded on 
their wonderful necks, which are always just going to 
break, but never do. Fields of hemp we saw, and 
took it for a privileged weed until we were told better. 
Linseed we saw too, in great slippery dark-blue patch- 
es, and in the midst of all Franz suddenly reined up in 
front of the Schwarzach Inn. 

Ah, that Schwarzach landlady ! She little dreamed 
how droll she looked as she stood pompously courtesy- 
ing in her doorway, with her broad-brimmed black felt 
hat jammed down over her eyebrows like a thatch. 
Her figure was so square and puffy, it looked as if it 
had feathers inside, and was made to be sold at a fair, 
to stick pins in. At the crease of her* waist a huge 
bunch of keys bobbed about incessantly, never finding 
any spot where they could lie still. Two tables full of 
Schwarzach men with beer and pipes, and two lattice- 
work cages of hens and cocks, we passed to go up to 
the first floor of the inn. 

0, the pride of the pincushion landlady in her feath- 
er-beds, her linen, her blankets, her crockery! She 
had come of the family of a Herr Somebody, though she 
did keep an inn and serve beer to peasants. Her fam- 
ily coat of arms hung in my bedroom, opposite a muse- 
um in a cupboard with glass doors. The contents of 
this museum were only to be explained on the suppo- 
sition that they were the aggregate result of a century 
of Christmas-tree. Not an article in the protective 
tariff of the United States but had been wrought into 
some queer shape and put away in this Schwarzach 
cupboard ; mysteries of wax, glass, china, worsted, 
paper, leather, bone. Most distinctly of all I remember 
a white wax face stuck on top of an egg-shell painted 
red, with a bit of green fringe for neck, and a bit of 



THE VALLE-^ OF GASTEIN. 41 

black wood for a leg. This impish thing grinned at 
me all night. 

In this inn is a table round which the leaders of the 
Protestant peasants met in 1729 and took a solemn 
oath to leave the country rather than abandon their 
new faith. \{ the Schwarzach valley were as cold and 
dark then, as it was at the sundown we saw it in, I can 
conceive of heavier sacrifices than to exchange it for 
any possible spot in Prussia, Wlirtemberg, or North 
America, to which, according to the Gruide-Book, the 
thirty thousand Protestants fled. 

Next day sunshine and silver tent webs all along the 
road at eight o'clock in the morning. 

A few more miles to the west, through Lend, a smut- 
ty little village where men have been melting gold and 
silver since the year 1538, and then we turned sharply 
to the south, to climb up through the wild " Klamme " 
to the valley of G-astein. At the turn we met a royal 
messenger, the shining river Ache, which said, " Gro up 
the road I have come. I left G-astein an hour ago." 

" Less than an hour ago, we should think, stream, 
by the rate at which you travel," said we, as we en- 
tered the pass and began to mount slowly up. 

Four horses now, and Franz is glad if we all walk. 
What triumph for a road to keep foothold on these 
precipices ! '' Chiefly schistous limestone," whatever 
that may be, Murray says that they are ; but they look 
like giant strata of petrified wood. Small bits of the 
stone lie in your hand like strips of old drift-wood and 
crumble between your fingers almost as readily; so 
that you glance uneasily at the walls of it, to right one 
thousand feet above your head, and to left one thou- 
sand feet more of walls of it, down, down to the boil- 
ing river. If some giant were to give a stout pinch to 
a ton or so of it while you pass, it would be bad. 

^' Dreadful avalanches here in spring," says Franz. 

We are glad it is August, and walk faster. The 
larches and bluebells and thyme rock away undis- 



42 THE VALLEY OF GASTEIN. 

turbed, however, and keep the cHflfs green and bright 
and spicy. Here is heath, too, the first we had seen, 
fairest of lowly blossoms, with tiny pink bells in stiff 
thick rows fringed with green needle-points of leaves : 
it crowds the thyme out and makes its purple look dull 
and coarse. 

The Ache seemed to us a most riotous river, all 
through the Klamme. We never dreamed that we 
were looking at its sober middle age, and that it had 
sown its wildest oats far up the G-astein valley. 

That is probably one reason it looks so mischievous 
all through the pass. It knows that people believe it 
to be doing its best leaping, and it laughs as an old 
woman who had had mad triumphs in her youth 
might to hear herself called gay at fifty. 

It was through this Klamme that the rich and haugh- 
ty Dame Weitmoser was riding one day, when she 
refused to give alms to an old beggar-woman who 
stood by the roadside. 

The beggar-woman cursed her to her face, saying, 
^' You shall yourself live to ask alms." 

'^ Ha, that is impossible; as impossible as that I 
shall ever see this ring again," replied the wicked Frau 
Weitmoser, drawing from her finger a diamond ring 
and throwing it into the Ache. Then hitting the beg- 
gar-woman across the face with her riding-whip, she 
galloped off. 

Three days later Herr Weitmoser, sitting at the head 
of his supper-table, surrounded by a party of friends, 
cut open a large trout and out flew his wife's diamond 
ring and rolled across the table towards her. Yery 
pale she turned, but no one knew the reason. From 
that day Herr Weitmoser's gold-mines began to yield 
less and less gold, and his riches melted away, until 
they were as poor as the poor beggar-woman who had 
been so cruelly treated in the pass. Legends differ as 
to the close of the story, some killing the haughty, 
hard-hearted woman off, in season for Herr Weitmoser 



THE VALLEY OF GASTEIN, 



43 



to marry again and accumulate another fortune ; others 
making her hve to repent in her bitter poverty, and, 
after she had become so kind and benevolent that she 
shared her little freely with her fellov^-poor, giving 
back to them tenfold their original wealth. At any 
rate, the Herr Weitmoser is buried at Hof-G-astein ; for 
did we not see the stone Q^gj of him on a slab in the 
little church ? He lies flat on his back, in puffed sleeves 
and enormous boots, and two of his gold-miners stand 
guarding him, one at his head and one at his feet, with 
lifted hammers in their hands. 

At the entrance of this pass, also, is the chapel of 
Ethelinda, scene of a still wilder story, and, better than 
all, one which is believed to be strictly true. In the 
Hof-G-astein church is a picture of its most startling 
incidents, and there is not a peasant within ten miles 
of the Klamme but will tell you that on windy nights 
can still be heard the words " Ethelinda," " Ethehnda," 
echoing around the chapel walls. 

Ethelinda was the wife of another of the rich Weit- 
mosers, who owned the gold-mines in the Radhaus- 
berg. Men are alike in all centuries. When Ethelinda 
died, Ethelinda's husband shed fewer tears than did 
another of the Weitmosers, Christopher by name, who 
had loved Ethelinda long and hopelessly. This lover 
hid himself in the chapel while the funeral rites were 
being performed. At midnight he went down into the 
vault where Ethelinda's body had been placed. A ter-^ 
rible thunder-storm made the fearful place still more 
fearful. By light of the sharp flashes he saw the face of 
the woman he loved. He bent over to kiss her. As he 
pressed his lips to hers she sighed, opened her eyes, 
and said, '^ Where am I ? " But before either of them 
could comprehend the terror and ecstasy of the mo- 
ment, Ethelinda exclaimed, " fly, fly for help ! The 
pains of childbirth are upon me I Hasten, or it will 
be too late ! " 

The lover forgets all danger to himself in his anguish 



44 



THE VALLEY OF GASTEIN, 



of fear for her, and bursts breathless into the husband's 
presence with the incredible news that his buried wife 
is alive, and lying in travail in her coffin, in the chapel. 
Weitmoser's first impulse is to slay the man whose tale 
so plainly reveals him as lover of Ethelinda. But he 
thinks better of it, and, hand in hand, they hurry to 
the chapel. Angels have been before them, and suc- 
cored the mother and child. They find Ethelinda 
kneeling on the altar steps, with her babe in her arms. 
History wisely forbore to encumber the narrative with 
any details of how embarrassing it was for them all to 
live in the same village after this ; but in the same lit- 
tle church of Hof-G-astein, where is the picture of 
Ethelinda in her graveclothes, kneeling on the altar 
steps holding up her child to the Virgin, are the grave- 
stones of Christopher Weitmoser and his wife and 
children, from which we can understand that time had 
the same excellent knack then, as now, of curing that 
sort of wound. 

The G-astein valley reveals itself cautiously by instal- 
ments, being in three plateaus. Coming out on the 
first, and seeing a little hamlet brooding over green 
meadows before us, we exclaimed, ^' G-astein, Gas- 
tein ! " 

" No, indeed," said Franz, contemptuously, " only 
Dorf aastein." 

We wondered and were silent. Miles farther on, 
another sharp ascent and another valley. '' Surely this 
is G-astein ? " 

" No, no, only Hof-G-astein." We wondered still 
more, but were glad, because Hof-G-astein is white and 
dusty and glaring. The houses elbow each other and 
are hideous, and the Ache takes a nap in the marshy 
meadows. 

Steadily we climbed on ; one mile, two miles, three 
miles, up hill. Snow mountains came into view.. The 
Ache began to caper and tumble. Cold air blew in our 
faces; this was the noon weather of G-astein. Pink 



THE VALLEY OF GASTELN, 45 

heath bordered the road ; bushes of it, mats of it ; i( 
see^ned a sin to scatter so much of anything so lovely. 
Dark fir woods stretched and met over our heads ,^ 
gleams of houses came through. 

" Yes, this is Grastein," said Franz, with proud em-, 
phasis, which meant, " Now you will see what it is to 
mistake any other place for Gastein." 

Sure enough, wise old proverb : '' There is but one 
G-astein." 

For, knows the world any other green and snow- 
circled village which holds a waterfall three hundred 
feet high in its centre ? One hesitates at first whether 
to say the waterfall is in the town, or the town in 
the waterfall, so inextricably mixed up are they; so 
noisy is the waterfall and so still is the town. Some 
of the houses hang over the waterfall ; some of the 
threads of the waterfall wriggle into the gardens. The 
longer you stay the more you feel that the waterfall is 
somehow at the bottom of everything. From one side 
to other of this valley an arrow might easily fly. Both 
walls are green almost to the very top with pastures 
and fir woods, and dotted with little brown houses, 
which look as if birds had taken to building walled 
nests on the ground and roofing them over. To the 
west the wall is an unbroken line. Behind it the sun 
drops early in the afternoon like a plummet. Sunset 
in G-astein is no affair of the almanac. Every point 
has its own calendar. Long after Gastein — or Bad- 
Gastein, as we ought to begin to call it — is in shadow, 
Hof-Gastein, in the open meadow three miles below, 
is yellow with the sun. To the east and south are 
more mountains and higher, but not in range with 
each other, — the Stiihle, the Kadhausberg, Ankogel, 
and Gamskarkogel, all between six and twelve thou- 
sand feet high. Thus the view from the west side of 
the valley has far more beauty and variety. There 
are now on this side only a few houses, but ultimately 
it must be Gastein's West End. 



46 THE VALLEY OF GASTEIN. 

The geologists, who know, say that whero now are 
the valleys of G-astein and Bockstein were once two 
great lakes, which the earth in a spasm of thirst some 
day gulped down at a swallow ; all but the water of 
the perverse river Ache, which would not be swal- 
lowed. When the cold water went in, some of the 
pent-up hot water jumped at the chance of getting out: 
hence the famous hot springs, great marvel and bless- 
ing of Gastein. 

There are eighteen of these hot springs, some trick- 
ling slowly from the rocks, some bubbling out in the 
very midst of the cold water of the cascade. They 
make the' best of their loopholes of escape, coming into 
town at the rate of one hundred and thirty-two thou- 
sand cubic feet every twenty-four hours. The water is 
perfectly colorless and tasteless ; yet the list of sulphates 
and chlorides, etc., of which it is made, is a long one, 
numbering nine in all. The recipe is an old one, and 
probably good, though it sounds formidable. 

The legend of its discovery is, that in the year 680 
three hunters, following a wounded stag, found him 
bathing his wounds in one of these hot springs, whose 
vapor attracted their attention. A little later the Ro- 
mans, seeking after gold and silver, penetrated to the 
valley and found living there two holy men named 
Primus and Felicianus. This was in the days of Eu- 
pert, the first of the Salzburg Archbishops. Primus 
and Felicianus were carried prisoners to Rome and 
thrown to the lions in the Coliseum. But they still 
live as the Patron Saints of Gastein. All good Catho- 
lics coming to be cured of disease, — and most who 
come are good Catholics, — invoke the prayers of Saints 
Primus and Felicianus, and, when they go away, leave 
grateful record in the chronicles of G-astein, beginning: 
'* To God and the Saints Primus and Felicianus be 
thanks." 

The Salzburg Archbishops kept possession of the 
valley until late in the seventeenth century. Then it 



THE VALLEY OF GASTELN. 47 

went through half a century of pohtical and rehgious 
warfares, passing from the Archbishops to other rulers, 
then to Bavaria, and finally to Austria, which still holds 
it. There is an Austrian commandant at St. Johann, 
an Austrian judge at Hof-G-astein, and at Bad-G-astein 
an Austrian bath inspector and government commis- 
sioner. 

But still the church holds sway. There is a Roman 
Catholic curate in every village, a magnificent Catholic 
church going up in the very centre of Bad-G-astein, and 
nobody can stay two days in the town without being 
visited by the sweet-voiced Sisters of Charity in black, 
who ask, and are sure to get, alms for the poor in the 
name of Primus and Felicianus. 

Life in Gastein begins bew^ilderingly for the newly 
arrived. How it began with us I would not dare to 
tell. It would be foolish to throw away one's reputa- 
tion for veracity on the single stake of an utterly in- 
credible statement as to the number of beds one had 
slept in in forty-eight hours. But not the most expe- 
rienced and cautious traveller in the w^orld can be sure 
of escaping an experience like ours. He will have 
telegraphed beforehand for rooms, having read in his 
Murray that Wildbad-Gastein in August is so crowded 
with the nobility of Russia, Grermany, and Austria that 
it is not safe to go there without this precaution. As 
he steps out of his carriage in front of Straubinger's 
Hotel, Grustav, the pompous head-waiter, will wave 
him back, and explain with much flourish that there is 
not so much as one square inch of unoccupied room 
under Straubinger's roof, but that he can have for one 
day a room in the great stone Schloss opposite. At 

end of that day Lord A is coming to take the 

apartment for a month. By that time Count B 

will have vacated another, G-ustav does not remember 
exactly where, but he can have it for a few hours ; and 
then when the Prince, or Duke, or Herr, who has 
claims on that at a fixed minute, arrives, he can move 



48 THE VALLEY OF GASTEIM 

to another which will be sure to be vacant ; or if it is 
not, he can go to sleep at Bockstein, four miles farther 
up the valley, or at Hof-G-astein. three miles farther 
down. 

There can be nothing on earth like the problem of 
lodging at Bad-G-astein in August, except jumping for 
life from cake to cake of ice in the Polar Sea. It is very 
exciting and amusing for a time, if the cakes are not 
too far apart. In the mean time, you eat your break- 
fast on the cake where you have slept, your dinner on 
the road to the next one, and your tea when you get 
there. Very good are the breakfasts and teas in all 
these lodging-houses, served by smiling, white-aproned 
housekeepers, who kiss your hand in token of alle- 
giance, and bring you roses and forget-me-nots on your 
name day, if they happen to find out what it is. G-ood 
butter, milk, raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, figs, 
tomatoes, grapes, pears, plums, eggs, — all these you 
can have for the asking ; bread which is white and fine, 
and which they think delicious who have not com- 
muned with Liebig and learned to ask for the good, 
nutritious bran. But with the milk and the fruit, and 
now and then a resolute pull at the native black bread, 
anise-seed and all, one can breakfast and tea happily. 
But when you ask for dinner, the face of nature changes. 
The thing called dinner you can eat at a table d'hote 
in the hotels, or in a cafe, or you can have it sent 
to you at your lodgings, in a slippery tower of small 
white china tubs, which, when they are ranged round 
you on your table, make you think of a buttery wash- 
ing-day. What may be in these tubs. Heaven forbid 
that I should try to describe. Who lives to dine world 
better not go to Gastein ; in fact, who cannot get akng 
without dining would better stay away. He who is 
wise will fight clear of the hotels and cafes^ make inter- 
est with his landlady to give him a sort of picnic lunch 
at noonday, and postpone ideas of dinner till he returns 
to that paradise among hotels, the Europa at Salzburg. 



THE VALLEY OF GASTEIN. 49 

These hearty, strong, tireless Grermans, who cKmb a 
mountain or two of a morning for summer pleasure, 
find it nowise unsatisfactory to stop anywhere on the 
road, and eat anything for dinner. They do it as nat- 
urally as goats nibble a living from one rock to-day 
and another to-morrow. They are better off than we 
in being so much less wedded to routine ; but it is a 
freedom not easy to acquire. For the average Ameri- 
can to sleep in one house, breakfast in a second, dine in 
a third, tea in a fourth, and sleep again in a fifth, seems 
to turn life into a perpetual passover, not to be endured 
many weeks at a time. 

Having made sure of a ' breakfast, and that Lord A, 
B, or C will not require your apartment before noon, 
you go out to look G-astein in the face, hear the sound 
and feel the heat of its wonderful waters. 

Water to right, water to left, cold water, warm 
water, hot water, water trickling from rocks, water 
running from spouts, water boihng out of sight and 
sending up steam, and in and around and above and 
beyond everything the great waterfall thundering down 
its three hundred feet, deafening you with noise how- 
ever far you go, and drenching you with spray if you 
come near. 

^' 0, which water is for what disease ? " we exclaim, 
curious to taste of all, afraid to taste of any, remember- 
ing Hahnemann, whom we revere. 

^' Gro to Dr. ProU," says everybody. '^ He is the 
man to tell you all about G-astein. He knows it thor- 
oughly." 

Indeed he does. He may be said to have G-astein 
by heart. 

Between nine and eleven in the mornings there is a 
chance of finding Dr. ProU at his tiny, odd, three- 
roomed office, which is composed of equal parts of bare 
rock and vapor-bath. At all other hours of the day 
they who wish to see him must watch and waylay him 
as sportsmen do game. Each man you ask will have 

3 D 



so 



THE VALLEY OF GASTEIN. 



seen him just the minute before, running rapidly up or 
down some hill, but you will be wise not to attempt 
overtaking him. 

Dr. Proll is a man whom it belongs to Victor Hugo 
to describe. Words less subtile than his cannot draw 
the lines of a nature at once so electric, so simple, so 
pure, so wise, so enthusiastic, so gentle, so childlike, so 
strong. Eeverently I ask his pardon for saying, even 
at this distance, this much. 

On the table in the room where Dr. Proll receives 
his patients, stands a dingy little apparatus at sight of 
which one idly wonders, — a magnetic needle swinging 
by pink floss silk under a low oval clock-case of glass, 
a small electrical battery, and a red glass vessel half 
full of water. These are the silent but eloquent wit- 
nesses which tell the secret of the naiad of Grastein. 
The doctor's blue eyes sparkle with eagerness as he 
immerses the battery in the water from the hot spring, 
and, connecting the wires with the electrometer, 
watches to see the needle move. He has done this 
perhaps thousands of times, but the thousandth time 
and the first are alike to all true lovers of science, — to 
all true lovers in the world, for that matter. 

" You see ? you see ? " he exclaims. 

Yes, we see that the needle swings fifty degrees. 
The temperature of the water was 14" Reaumur. Then 
he puts the battery into distilled water of the same 
temperature; the needle swings but twenty degrees, 
into common well-water, same temperature, and it 
swings but fifteen. 

^' Now I will to you show that the GTastein water is 
the only thing in this world over which time has no 
power," says Dr. Proll, filling the red glass vessel from 
another bottle. " This is hot spring water, one year 
old. It would be the same if it were one hundred 
years old. Look ! " 

Yes, the needle swings fifty degrees. 

'^ And now remains the most wonderful experiment 



THE VALLEY OF GASTEIN. 



51 



of all. I will show you how a very little of this magi- 
cal water can electrify other water, just as one electric 
soul can electrify hundreds of commoner natures." 

We smile at this. It is not possible in the first mo- 
ment to be lifted quite to the heights of Dr. Proll's 
enthusiasm. But wait ! Here is the battery in com- 
mon boiled water, temperature 26° Reaumur. The nee- 
dle moves sluggishly, barely ten degrees. 

" You see ? you see ? we will repeat ; all experi- 
ments should be twice." 

Yes, the needle moves barely ten degrees. 

" Now we will turn in an equal quantity of hot spring 
water two years old, temperature the same. Look! 
look ! " exclaims the doctor, clasping his hands in the 
delight of the true experimenter. 

Sure enough. The heavy boiled water is electrified 
into new life. The needle swings forty degrees ! 

^' And this is why I say that the water of Grastein is 
the water for souls," continues the doctor, liftiug out 
the battery with unconscious lovingness in his touch ; 
'' And this is w^hy I say in my book on Gastein, that 
these baths are the baths of eternal youth ; and this is 
why an old physician, more than a hundred years ago, 
wrote a little poem, in which he makes the naiad of 
Grastein say to the invalids, 

"If I cannot please all 
And cannot bring health to all, 
That is common to me and God. 
Where there lingers in the blood 
The poison of sin and passion in the soul, 
There can enter neither God nor I." 

One is a little sobered by all this. It is nearer to the 
air of miracles than we commonly come. Under the 
impressive silent pointing of this magnetic needle-fin- 
ger, we listened with grave faith to the account of the 
effect of these waters on wilted flowers. This is a curi- 
ous experiment, often tried. Flowers which are to all 
appearance dead, if they are left for tliree days in this 



52 



THE VALLEY OF GASTEIN. 



warm water hold up their heads, regain shape, color, 
fragrance, and live for several days more. No won- 
der that old madman Paracelsus thought he had dis- 
covered in the G-astein waters the elixir of life. No 
wonder that to-day the sweet wild paths of Grastein 
are crowded with old men seeking to be made young, 
or, at least, to be saved from growing older. 

" It is a strange thing, though," says dear, true- 
hearted Dr. Proll, — •' it is a strange thing, but in all 
these twenty years never has one woman come to me 
to be made young. Every year come many men, 
praying that they may not grow old; but never yet 
one woman." 

Ah, we thought, perhaps the women are less honest 
than the men, and do not tell their motives. 

But there is not time to grow very superstitious over 
these tales of magic, for there is so much else to be 
seen. In the rear room of the office is the hot-vapor 
bath; through a hole in the floor up comes the hot 
steam, heated no human being can tell how far down 
in the heart of the earth ; night and day the fires go ; 
for twelve hundred years the bath has been standing 
ready to steam people. Over the hole in the floor is a 
mysterious wooden structure, looking like a combina- 
tion of pillory and threshing-machine. In five minutes, 
the doctor has shown, by a series of slippings and fit- 
tings and joinings, how, for every possible disease, every 
mentionable part of the body can be separately steamed, 
inch by inch, till one is cooked well. He wound up 
with imploring me to put my ear to the end of a long, 
narrow, wooden pipe which he screwed on the appa- 
ratus. ^' This is sure cure for deafiiess," he said. 

I leaped. I should think it might be. In that sec- 
ond I had heard scouring through my brain all sorts of 
noises from spheres unknown. The ear-trumpet, which 
Hood's old woman bought, and, " the very next day, 
heard from her husband at Botany Bay," was nothing 
to it. The doctor could not understand why I should 



THE VALLEY OF GASTEIN, 



S3 



shrink so from listening to this wild rush of scalding 
steam from the earth's middle. He would have been 
shocked to know that, to my inexperience, it seemed 
nothing less than a speaking-tube from the infernal 
regions. 

But we went nearer yet to the central fires. Up, 
up a winding path, shaded and made sweet like all 
Grastein's paths by fir-trees, mosses and heath, and 
bluebells; and there, sunk in the solid rock, was a pol- 
ished iron gate. A peasant-woman keeps the key of 
this, and gets a little daily bread by opening it for 
strangers. She brought suits of stout twilled cloth for 
us to wear ; but we declined them, having learned in 
the salt-mines of Hallein that, the inside of the earth 
being much cleaner than the outside, it is all nonsense 
to take such precautions about going in. A poor sick 
man who was painfully sitting still on a bench near 
the gate, seeing our preparations, came up and asked to 
join our party. I fancied that he had a desire to get a 
little nearer to the head-quarters of cure, and reassure 
himself by a sight of the miraculous spring. The peas- 
ant-woman went on before, carrying a small lantern, 
which twinkled like a very little good deed in the 
worst of worlds. The passage was very narrow and 
low. Overhead were stalactites of yellow and white ; 
the walls dripped ceaselessly ; the path was stony and 
wet. Hotter and hotter it grew as we went on. How 
much farther could we afford to go, at such geometri- 
cal ratio of heat ? we were just beginning to ask, when 
the woman turned and, setting down her lantern, 
pointed to the spring. It was a very small stream, 
running out of the rock above her head fast enough to 
fill a cup in a very few seconds, and almost boiling hot. 
We all put our fingers solemnly in and solemnly put 
them to our lips ; the woman nodded and said, " Good, 
good " ; crossing herself, I suppose in the name of the 
good Saints Primus and Felicianus, she led the way 
out. I felt like crossing myself too. High-temperature 



54 



THE VALLEY OF GASTEIN, 



underground places are singularly uncanny, and give 
one respect for the old mythology's calculation of the 
meridian of Tartarus. 

For rainy days — and those are, must we own it? 
seventeen out of every thirty in Grastein — there is a 
most curious provision in the shape of a long glass gal- 
lery, four hundred and fifty feet long and twelve wide. 
Here the noble invalidism and untitled health and cu- 
riosity may walk, read, smoke, eat, trade, and sleep 
too, for aught I know. It is the oddest of places ; so 
many hundred feet of conservatory, with all sorts of 
human plants leaning against its sides, in tilted chairs ; 
I never grew weary of walking through it, or flattening 
my nose against its panes just behind the aristocratic 
shoulders of his Highness the Grand Chamberlain of 

, as he sat reading some court journal or other. A 

little room at the end holds a piano and two tables 
covered with a species of literature which was new to 
me, but which all G-astein seemed to feed and subsist 
on, that is, the lists of all the visitors at all the baths 
and watering-places in Europe. Pamphlet after pam- 
phlet, they arrived every few days, corrected and 
annotated with care, the silliest and most meaning- 
less census which could be imagined. But eager 
women came early to secure first reading of them, 
and other women with eyes fixed on the fortunate 
possessor of the valuable news sat waiting for their 
turn to come. This room is exclusively for women ; 
opening out of it, in continuation of satire on their 
probable requirements, is a confectioner's shop ; next 
comes the general reading-room, where are all the con- 
tinental journals of importance ; next a long, empty 
room for promenading, where your only hindrance will 
be the appealing looks from venders of fancy wares, 
who have their glass cases in a row on one side ; then 
comes the covered walk, also four fifths glass, on the 
bridge over the waterfall ; and then comes the Strau- 
binger Platz, the smallest, busiest, noisiest, most pom- 



THE VALLEY OF GASTEIN, 



55 



pous little Platz in the world; one side hotel, three 
sides lodging-house, and all sides waterfall ; lodgers 
and loungers incessantly walking to and fro, or sitting 
on benches taking coffee, and staring hstlessly at other 
lodgers and loungers ; booths of fruit ; booths of photo- 
graphs ; booths of flowers; booths of shoes; booths of 
inconceivable odds and ends, which nobody thought of 
wanting before they came in, but which everybody 
will buy before they go out, and will wish they had 
not when they come to pack ; here, every day, come 
bare-kneed hunters, bringing warm, dead chamois slung 
on their shoulders ; black and yellow Eilwagens drive 
up with postilions in salmon and blue, wearing big 

brass horns at their sides ; Madame the Countess , 

dressed with blue silk trimmed with point lace, sits un- 
der a white fringed sunshade, on a chair in front of 

Straubinger's Hotel ; and Madame the Frau sits, 

barefooted, bareheaded, opposite her, selling strawber- 
ries at eight kreutzers a tumblerful, and knitting away 
for dear life on a woollen stocking ; all this and much 
more in a little square which can be crossed in ten 
steps. It is like a play; once seated, you sit on and 
on, unconsciously waiting for the curtain to fall: on 
your right hand is the orchestra, ten pieces, who play 
wild Tyrolese airs very well, and add much to the dra- 
matic effect of things. Sunset is the curtain for this 
theatre, and dinner the only enter' acte. The instant 
the sun drops, the players scatter, the booths fold up ; 
Madame the Countess sweeps off into the hotel ; Ma- 
dame the Frau rolls up her knitting, cautiously mixes 
together her fresh and her old strawberries, and starts 
off brave and strong to mount to her chamber in the 
air, miles up on some hill. 

This play grows wearying to watch sooner than one 
would suppose. After a few days, one finds that all 
the climbing roads and paths lead to better things. 
There are the Schiller-Hohe, the Cafe Vergissmeirmicht, 
the Kaiser Friedrichs Laube (where the Emperor Fred- 



56 THE VALLEY OF GASTEIJV, 

erick III. took baths four centuries ago; ; the Pyrker- 
Hohe, named after the patriarch of Erlau, the poet 
Pyrker ; the Rudolfs-Hohe, the Windischgratz-Hohe, 
and many more cafes or summer-houses on shining 
heights, all of which give new views of the wonderful 
Gastein valley, and at all of which whoever is Grerman 
eats and drinks. The lure of a table, a chair, and a 
beer-mug seems a small reward to hold out, when for 
every additional mile that is walked a new world opens 
to the eye, but the Grermans see better through smoke 
and beer-colored glasses. 

Strong adventurous people, who can walk and climb 
without reckoning distances by aching muscles, have 
unending delights set before them for every day in 
Grastein. 

In the Kolshachthal are four thousand chamois. 
Every summer come royal hunting parties to Hof-G-as- 
tein, and they who follow them may see chamois fly- 
ing for their lives ; poor things, so helpless in spite of 
all their marvellous speed and spring. 

Then there is the lofty plateau of Nassfeld, the old 
" Wet Field " mentioned in Roman history. From 
this can be seen a great amphitheatre of glaciers and 
the passage by the Malnitzer-Tauern into Carinthia: 
this dangerous pass has an ineffable charm, from the 
fact that it is one of the only two ways out of the smil- 
ing Grastein valley. Once in, should any chance de- 
stroy the road in that wild Klamme through which the 
fierce Ache goes and you came, you have no possible 
way of escape, except on foot or on horseback, by the 
Malnitzer-Tauern. 

After the Nassfeld come the old gold-mines in the 
Radhausberg, where the old Weitmosers made and lost 
their fortunes, and every stone has its legend: the 
Bockhardt Mountain, with a poisoned lake in which 
no fish can swim, near which no bird can fly and no 
flower can grow; the valley Anlaufthal, on one side 
of w^hich rises the royal hill Ankogel, eleven thousand 



THE VALLEY OF GASTEIAT. 



57 



feet high, and called the Eldorado of mineralogists; 
and last, because greatest, the snow-topped mountain 
G-amskarkogel, The Righi of Austria, which look^ down 
upon more than one hundred glaciers. 

All this and more for well people. As for sick peo- 
ple their tale is soon told, either here or elsewhere. 
Hood's definition of medicine was exhaustive. In 
Gastein, however, httle is done with spoons ; people 
go into their medicine, instead of its going into them. 
Nobody takes but one bath a day ; the stronger inva- 
lids take it in the morning before breakfast, and are 
allowed to go their ways for the rest of the day. The 
weaker ones take it at ten o'clock in the forenoon, lie 
in bed for an hour after it, then eat dinner, then are 
commanded to dawdle gently about out of doors until 
one hour before sunset, after which they are, upon no 
excuse whatever, to leave the house. There are they 
who drink mineral waters from Bockstein, drink whey, 
drink goats' milk, eat grapes, eat figs, all for cure. They 
all look tired of being ill ; and they all give a semi- 
professional and inquisitive stare at each new-comer, 
as if they were thinking, ^' Ha, he looks as if he had it 
worse than I ! " Poor souls. It seems a considerable 
price to pay for the rush-candle, to keep it burning un- 
der such difficulties and restrictions. 

In a little pamphlet written by Dr. ProU upon Gras- 
tein are some explicit directions as to the proper course 
to be pursued by all invahds who hope to be cured by 
the G-astein waters. Reading them over, one smiles, 
quietly, wondering if careful following out of such di- 
rections would not be of itself sufficient cure for most 
ailments. 

'' Before arriving at G-astein, visit all such places, 
cities, mountains, mines, as you would wish to see. 

'' Also close up all your most annoying or engrossing 
business affairs." 

Among the 'Mcading conditions of success in the use 
of the baths," he enumerates, 
3* 



58 THE VALLEY OF GASTEIN, 

"A cheerful, amiable, and contented disposition," 
and 

*' Implicit obedience to the physician " ; and adds 
that, after the treatment, there must be, during a pe- 
riod of from three to twelve weeks, 

" Mental tranquiUity. 

'' No business nor bodily fatigue. 

'' No long walks nor climbings. 

"No remedials, internal nor external; a tepid bath 
once a week, but no other bath ! " 

But from the days of the Archbishops until now, it 
seems to have been held especially incumbent on all 
persons coming to these baths for help to come with 
quiet souls and pure consciences. The first volume of 
the " Chronicles of G-astein " is black and battered and 
yellow as an old monkish missal. More than half of 
the writing is entirely illegible ; but clear and distinct 
on its first page stands out the motto, written there in 
1681, and copied, I believe from the bath of some Ro- 
man Emperor, — 

" Curarum vacuus hunc adeas locum 
Ut morborum vacuum abire queas 
Non enim curatur qui curat." 

Which good advice freely translated, would be some- 
thing like this, '^ Whoever comes here to be cured must 
leave his cares at home ; for if he worries he will never 
get well." 

These " Chronicles of G-astein " are a never-failing 
source of amusement. There are fifteen volumes of 
them, written by the invalids themselves, from 1680 
until now. The records are written in old Latin, old 
G-erman, old French, all more or less illegible, so that 
there is endless interest in groping among them on the 
thousandth chance of finding something that can be 
deciphered. The books are carefully kept at the cure's 
house, and the volume for 1869 is quite a grand affair, 
having a mysterious locked brass box in one of the 



THE VALLEY OF GASTEIN, 



59 



covers. This is to receive the contributions of charita- 
ble people who are not sick, and of sick people who 
are superstitious and wish to propitiate the good Saints 
Primus and Felicianus. 

The box has the following inscription : — 

^' For the support of the school, and of the poor of 
both churches of the holy Primus and Felicianus, and 
the holy Nicholas church at 

WlLDBAD-G-ASTEIN. 

In order that the Almighty Grod may bless, by the 
prayers of those holy patrons of the Bath, the noble 
gift of the health-giving spring to all the patients." 

There are many most curious entries in these chron- 
icles, and no one can look through them without being 
impressed by the singular unanimity of testimony, 
during two hundred years, to the efficacy of the 
waters. Here and there, however, a discontented soul 
has written out his grumblings ; as, for instance, one 
Count Maximilian Joseph, Chamberlain of the King of 
Bavaria, who wrote on the 4th of July, 1747, in very 
cramped and crabbed old French : " Header, greeting ! 
May Grod preserve you from the four elements of this 
country which are all equally wonderful, even the en- 
nui " ; and an unknown grumbler of the English na- 
tion, one hundred and five years later, who was too 
courteous or too politic to sign his name to this coup^ 
let, — 

" Drenched with fountain, bath, and rain, 
God knows if I 've been drenched in vain." 

In 1732 Ludovic Frierfund wrote : " The fourth of 
July I began to use these baths. Now I am so much 
better, I believe I shall regain my health." (15th 
July.) 

A few days later the grateful Baroness Anna Sophia, 
of Gera, writes : " To God and the two patron gaints 



6o THE VALLEY OF GASTEIN, 

Primus and Felicianus shall be the greatest thanks that 
I have used for the second time these blessed baths." 

In 1752 the Countess Anna Maria Barbara Christia- 
na, of RonigSj declared : "I have finished this cure 
v^ith the aid of Grod, and the Holy Mother, and the 
two saints Primus and Felicianus, and depart in full 
health on the 17th of July." 

In 1830 Babette Brandhuber, may her soul rest in 
peace ! left on one of the pages of the chronicle a little 
German verse, of which this is almost a literal transla- 
tion : — 

*' holy spring and friendly vale, 
I came here full of pain ! 
My full heart writes this grateful tale, 
I leave thee well again." 

I am sorry to- say that there have been in G-astein 
two or three Americans and English less poetically 
gifted than Babette, who have filled several pages of 
this volume with rhymes for which one blushes. 

The two best things I found were a little record of 
one " Ruf, a money-changer of Munich," who, proba- 
bly in a half-defiant display of his unpoetical calling, 
left only that signature to this couplet : — 

" TO THE NAIAD OF GASTEIN. 

"A kiss from woman's lips brings luck; 
I kissed thee and am well." 

And the following French verses. The author's name 
seems to have been purposely written so that no 
human being can decipher it, though the date is so 
recent. But the handwriting is evidently that of a 
woman : — 

" AUX BATGNEUESr 

" Savez-vous qu'et est a Gastein 

Ou vous baignez pleins d'esperance? 
Mes chers amis, j'en suis certain 
C'est la fontaine de jouvence. 



THE VALLEY OF GASTEIN, 6 1 

•'Dans ses eaux jettez une fleur, 
Rose depuis long temps fl^trie; 
Bientot fraicheur, parfum, couleur 
A la rose rendront la vie. 

** Ainsi puis qu*on pent y gagner 
De quoi prolonger Texistence; 
Amis, venez souvent baigner 
A la fontaine de jonvence." 

(20th Julj-, 1820.) 

Half a century ago ! Youth and hope are over for 
her by this time ; though perhaps youth and hope are 
just beginning for her by this time, — the true youth, 
the immortal hope ; but whether she be to-day old on 
earth or young in heaven, I fancy her all the same, 
cherishing in her heart the memory of the rare, beau- 
tiful, blessed, dear G-astein valley. 

Gastuna tantum una I 



THE AMPEZZO PASS AND THE HOUSE 
OF THE STAR OF GOLD. 

OUR month's voyage of Venice had come to an 
end. We had said so many times to each other 
in the mornings, '^ We must go," that the meaningless 
declaration had come to be received with bursts of 
laughter, and nobody dared say it any more. ISTever- 
theless it v^as true : people who meant to summer in the 
Tyrol must not spend the whole of June in Venice. 
Silent, sad, beautiful Venice, how did our eyes cling to 
thy spires, as looking backward from the railway car- 
riage we saw them slowly go down in the pale water. 
That one can leave Venice by rail seems the most in- 
credible thing in life. At the first turn of the wheels 
and snort of the engine we began to doubt whether 
the city had been real; the first sight of green land 
was bewildering ; and when at the first station we saw 
wheeled carriages waiting for people, we were struck 
dumb. What a gigantic and agile creature did the 
horse appear ! and what a marvel of beautiful solidity 
the level earth, brown under foot, and full of locust 
hedges and pink -blossomed trees ! It is no small proof 
of the subtile spell of that wonderful city of water and 
stone, slowly sinking at anchor, that one month's life 
on its bosom is enough to make all other living seem 
unnatural. 

We even felt dull misgivings about the Tyrol, and 
the dolomite mountains of the grand Ampezzo Pass 
through which we were to pass to reach it. Never- 
theless, " Ampezzo Pass " was so stamped upon our 
whole bearing, that, as soon as we stepped out of the 



THE AMPEZZO PASS, 63 

carriage at Conegliano, we were taken possession of by 
screaming vetturini, each man of whom possessed the 
very best carriage and the very best horses, and was 
himself the very best guide in Coneghano! the 
persistence, the superhumaji persistence, of an Italian 
with a hope of money ! Into the inn, into our very 
bedchamber, followed the man who spoke loudest and 
fastest. 

Sixty francs a day ! that was very little. The 
ladies would not find any other man to go for so small 
a price. And his horses ! If we could but see his 
horses ! 

How energetic grew our Italian! We would not 
give sixty francs a day, and we wished to be alone. 
The dilemma became embarrassing. Women, even if 
they be American, even if they be three in number, 
cannot put a man out of a room by main force ; but at 
last moral force prevailed, and he went surlily away. 
We took counsel ; it was nearly dark ; we wished to 
begin our journey early the next morning ; no doubt 
this vetturino would inform his fellows, and they would 
combine and agree ; but sixty franks a day was a most 
exorbitant price for a carriage and two horses; we 
would not pay it; we could go by rail to Inspruck, 
and give up the Ampezzo Pass. Sadly the two who 
knew the least Italian set forth on errand of research 
among other vetturini. There is surprising advantage 
sometimes in conducting such bargains in a language 
which you do not understand. Armed with a few sim- 
ple phrases stating time, sum, distance, and obstinately 
reiterating them, ignorance will sometimes conquer by 
virtue of its very incapacity. 

We had barely crossed the threshold of the inn, 
when the same fierce-mouthed man sprang upon us. 

" Go away. We do not want you. We will not 
take you." 

Go away, indeed I as well dismiss our shadow! 
Bowing, gesticulating, falhng back, and then overtake 



64 THE AMPEZZO PASS, 

ing, all the while talking like a macaw, he kept on all 
•«^ides of us, that man of Conegliano. At last he sur- 
^•endered. That is, he said meekly, '^ What will the 
ladies give?" 

The moment he said that, we knew the day was 
ours. Now came my hour of success. I glibly said 
my lesson, " Forty francs a day. No more ! " 

A voluble reply ten minutes long, with heart-rend- 
ing gestures. 

^' I do not understand Italian. Forty francs a day. 
No more." 

Fifteen minutes more of volubility, appealing gri- 
mace, and gesture. 

" I do not understand one word ! Forty francs a day. 
No more ! " 

Our man fell. He would go for forty francs a day, 
this father of a family who had assured us with stream- 
ing eyes that his children would die of hunger if he 
went for less than sixty ! 

Once having accepted our terms, he was abjectly our 
servant. 

'^ Show us your horses ! " Meekly he led the way 
to his stables. With as knowing look as we could as- 
sume we scrutinized the lean black horse and dingy 
white horse which were walked up and down be- 
fore us. 

" 0, they can trot. Yes, yes, Signora ! " and lash- 
ing them with the halter's end he ran them up and 
down the hill at a good pace. 

Triumphantly we led our conquered vassal back to 
the hotel ; the story of our victory was received in- 
credulously by the friend whom we had left behind; 
and who, speaking Italian as fluently as she speaks 
English, had vainly met the wordy extortioner on his 
own ground with his own weapons. The contract 
was signed ; supper and bed and night passed, and at 
seven o'clock next morning, sunniest of Saturdays, ive 
were off. Giacomo, the driver, looked like a Barn- 



THE AMPEZZO PASS. 



65 



stable fisherman: thin, wiry, Hght blue eyes, pale 
brown hair, and scanty red whiskers. " 0, how came 
you over here?" thought we as he jumped up and 
took the reins. 

The whole country seemed on the broad laugh. So 
bright, so green were flower and leaf and field ; wav- 
ing locust hedges, fiill of morning-glories ; and every- 
where wide stretches of vineyards, in which the vines 
were looped across from tree to tree, looking like an 
array of one-legged dancers. 

Lunch at Santa Croce, a town which has a lake, and 
beech-woods and glimpses of the far-off dolomite peaks. 
In the distance we could see a misty fringe of solid 
green, high up in the air. It was the top of the great 
beech forest, from which the Venice arsenal gets wood 
for its oars and masts and gun-carriages. Ninety miles 
in circuit is this government forest, full of game, and 
with an isolated plateau in its centre, where the keep- 
ers and officials live. This would not be of especial 
moment to know, except that it is said that Titian used 
to go there to learn how trees grow, and that he spent 
three months in this neighborhood drawing the back- 
ground for his " Fhglit into Egypt." 

After lunch I walked on in advance of the carriage. 
A man and woman w^ho were working in a vineyard 
on the right sent their little baby to beg of me. I do 
not know why I remember that baby as I do no other 
child in all Italy. She was literally a baby, certainly 
not more than two years old ; she was beautiful, yet 
not more beautiful than scores of Italian babies ; but 
she was shy as a wild thrush ; she absolutely could 
not take a step towards me if she looked at me. So 
she clasped her two httle inches of hands tight over 
her eyes, and crept on, in the middle of the dusty road, 
more and more slowly, till at last she stood still, two 
yards off; then taking one sly peep at me through her 
fingers, she instantly shut them down again tighter 
than ever and stood there, kicking up little clouds of 



66 THE AMPEZZO PASS. 

dust with her bare toes, the most irresistible bhnd beg- 
gar I ever saw. 

It is of no consequence to anybody that the name 
of the town where we slept that night was Longarone. 
If only journeys could be told and the names of towns 
left out, how marvellously improved stories of travel 
would be. But whoever sleeps at Longarone will 
remember it always, the dark, frightened, poverty- 
stricken looking little town which huddles in such bare 
hollows of mountain and rock. The dismal inn, also, 
they will never forgei : rooms so huge that lights can^ 
not light them ; two stalking high beds in every bed- 
room ; and on the mouldy walls of the great dining- 
room ghastly pictures of Bible characters in giant size, — 
the Queen of Sheba leading up to Solomon, on his throne, 
a procession of black boys loaded down with pumpkin- 
shaped jewels ; Samson with his head in the lap of 
Delilah, who brandishes aloft at least two pounds of 
coarse black hair; and Pharaoh's daughter receiving 
Moses in a knife-tray, while his mother stands in full 
sight knee-deep in water on the opposite side of the 
river. 

The Ampezzo road, just beyond Longarone, enters 
the country of Cadore, the country of Titian. No 
wonder they were strong in fight, the Cadorini, and 
loyal of soul. To be born in such mountain fastnesses, 
to climb such precipices, to breathe such air, and to see 
such flowers, at once, could not fail to make souls both 
strong and sweet. 

A strange hopelessness almost holds me back from 
the attempt to speak of that day's journey through the 
Ampezzo Pass : they who have not seen it will not 
believe; they who have seen it will smile that one 
should try to put such shapes in words. Possibly 
geologists can tell what a dolomite mountain is ; how 
and why it is so seamed, so jagged, so wrought into 
castle and battlement and obehsk and cathedral-front; 
beautiful and terrible and graceful and grotesque ; by 



THE AMPEZZO PASS. 



67 



turns, all at once; in sunlight, in shadow, at noon, at 
night; shifting and changing tint with every breath 
of wind or cloud on its surfaces : but to common men's 
eyes, these dolomite ranges are as unlike all other 
mountain forms as is Cellini's carven work to market- 
place pottery. 

They seem like supernatural architecture gleaming 
out of supernatural realms in upper air. There are 
spires and minarets and bell-towers and turrets and 
colonnades and wrought walls; that they are ten, 
twelve, thirteen thousand feet away, that no human 
foot can scale them, no living earthly thing abide among 
them, only makes their distinct semblance of palace 
and church and city the more uncanny. And when, 
as often happens, a sudden wreath of cloud or fantastic 
growth of moss changes some scarred and lined rock 
into giant likeness of human face, it becomes still hard- 
er not to believe that they are tenanted by beings not 
of flesh and blood. One such face we saw, which 
never took its eyes off us for miles. Even sharp turns 
in the road made no change in it, except to draw the 
gray hood of fir closer round its cheeks and to make it 
look more and more weird. 

These startling and fantastic mountain shapes hedged 
us, walled us, seemed to marshal themselves to oppose 
us, all the way from Longarone to Tai Cadore. In 
spite of ourselves we were overawed. If the sun had 
not shone gayly and the peasants had not whistled and 
sung, I think we might have been afraid. But every 
little village was astir with work, and babies were 
everywhere; we met low two-wheeled wagons filled 
with hay, slowly pulled along by donkeys, while the 
driver slept on his back ; wagons loaded heavily with 
beech and pine boards, and drawn by oxen which 
looked like gigantic maltese kittens with horns. The 
meadows were green with a greenness so shining that 
it seemed to blaze; whole fields were solid mosaics of 
color, with red and blue and yellow and white flowers. 



68 THE AMPEZZO PASS. 

Little chapels were perched up on apparently inacces- 
sible heights, above every village. " Why do they put 
the chapels so high up, Q-iacomo ? " said I. " It must 
be very hard to climb to them." 

^' Ah, Signora, the air is holier there," replied the 
Barnstable fisherman. 

At Perarollo, the river Boita, and the river Piave, 
and the huge dolomite Antelao, eleven thousand feet 
high, all join hands to close up the Ampezzo Pass. 
This is perhaps the most picturesque spot of the road. 
The rivers force the mountains back a little^ and the sun 
pours in; high up on all sides are small plateaus of 
green pasture ; the village is built into every niche of 
foothold it can find, and is full of pretty summer-houses 
of brown and yellow wood. On each river are lum- 
ber-mills, and the glistening logs are rolling and drift- 
ing down on both sides. 

Three times this wonderful Ampezzo road winds 
across the front of the Antelao before it can venture to 
turn it ; it seems to cling to the mountain's side like 
an elastic ladder of stone, a perfect miracle of engineer- 
ing. We were hours climbing slowly back and forth 
on that dolomite wall, tacking, like a ship in contrary 
winds. From the first tier of the road we looked up 
to the other two, hanging above our heads; from the 
upper, we looked down into Perarollo, and could see 
no trace of the road by which we had come. 

At last we fairly rounded the mountain, and, turning 
back again into the valley of the Boita, saw the village 
of Tai Cadore shining before us. In an hour we had 
reached the little inn. But a guest had arrived before 
us, sudden, unannounced. His unwelcome presence 
filled every room. As Griacomo, with a ludicrous affec- 
tation of effort, reined in his only too willing horses, a 
man came running out of the house with significant 
gestures exclaiming, ^' Do not stop, do not stop ; the 
padrone lies dying." He was the padrone's son, and 
his eyes were red from crying. A crowd of peasants 



THE AMPEZZO PASS. 



09 



stood about the door and in the hall; the litcle dingj 
windows of the room on the left hand of the door were 
darkened by heads rising one above the other, but all 
motionless. ISTo doubt it was in that very room that 
the poor landlord lay, drawing his last breaths with 
unnecessary difficulty in the close air made still closer 
by such crowding in of friends and neighbors. I was 
struck by the oneness of the look which death's pres- 
ence brings on faces of simple-hearted, solitary people 
all the world over. These men of Cadore were earlier 
on the spot than it is the custom in Maine or New 
Hampshire for neighbors to gather ; but I have seen at 
many a New England funeral just such a silent, eager 
circle of men standing around the door through which 
the dead must be borne, and looking and listening with 
a weird sort of alert solemnity which seems not wholly 
sorry for the occasion. 

It was a most opportune moment for us, how- 
ever, which this good soul had selected for his dying. 
Nothing for the reluctant Griacomo and the nerve- 
less horses to do but to take us a mile and a half off 
the route for dinner and rest, at Pieve di Cadore. 
Pieve di Cadore ! the very place we had had at heart 
ever since we left Venice, and which we had had many 
misgivings about being able to see, while Giacomo 
rested his horses at Tai. At Pieve di Cadore '' II divino 
Tiziano " was born in 1477 ; at Pieve di Cadore he 
lived till he was ten years old ; to Pieve di Cadore he 
returned year after year, for love of his kindred, men, 
and mountains. There, after the death of his wife, in 
1530, he took refuge with his three motherless little 
children; and during this visit he painted, on a banner 
for the village church, a picture of three little children 
giving flowers to a Madonna seated on a throne. 

There, in 1560, he came again, old, but not bent, and 
bearing the titles of Count of the Empire and Knight 
of the Grolden Spur. 

There also he would have fled, in 1576, when the 



70 THE AMPEZZO PASS 

plague was sweeping Yenice ; but brave and strong to 
the last, he delayed gomg until an edict had been 
issued forbidding the departure of any citizen from 
Venice. So in Yenice he died, nmety-nine years old, 
alone, forsaken even by his servants; and the pesti- 
lence which had taken his life thwarted his purpose 
even after his death, for none aared carry his body — 
as he had willed, and left order for its burial — to Pieve 
di Cadore. 

They buried it in haste in the church of the Frari, 
in Yenice, dropping into the grave the knightly insig- 
nia which the emperor had given to the painter ; and 
for nearly half a century no stone marked the spot 
where the insignia lay turning to dust, and the dust 
lay turning into insignia of those mysterious things 
" which shall be." 

" No one ever goes to the inn at Pieve di Cadore," 
said the displeased G-iacomo, with a shrug. 

" Why then is it an inn ? " said we with sharp log- 
ical retort, inwardly blessing the conjunction of our 
star with the dying landlord's at Tai, and not caring 
whether we could dine or not, in an inn on a street 
where the little boy Tiziano Yecellio had played. 

But the inn was an inn, and the dinner not so bad 
that I remember it. I shall never forget, though, how 
it was cooked ; in big iron pots, swung from derricks 
of cranes, above a big bortire, built on a big stone plat- 
form, raised up in a sort of bay-window chimney, fill- 
ing one whole side of the kitchen \ benches to right of 
the bonfire, benches to left of the bonfire; benches 
and bonfire all in the chimney bay-window ; and peo- 
ple sitting on the benches, I among them, with feet at 
the bonfire ; and all the while the great iron pots boil- 
ing and steaming and bobbing their covers, among and 
above our feet ; the landlady reaching over and among 
our shoulders, and sticking in ladles and pokers here 
and there. If she had knocked off my hat, at any min- 
ute, it would have seemed the most natural thing in 



THE AMPEZZO PASS, 



71 



the world ; merely taking off my cover and the beef's 
at once, lest we should boil to pieces. 

She told us with pride how a deaf and dumb English 
artist had stayed with her for two months, had walked 
all over the Cadore country, and had carried away a 
box full of the most beautiful pictures which he had 
painted. " Poor gentleman, there was not much else 
he could do, since he could neither speak nor hear." 
" He was the sweetest gentleman." " Never made 
any trouble." ^' Lived on polenta chiefly." " All the 
children knew him and used to follow him when he 
went off to paint." And so she ran on, adding adjec- 
tive after adjective in the sweet Italian superlatives, 
which are so silver smooth in their endings that there 
seems far less of exaggeration in them than in the 
harsher measures of more and most in other tongues. 
It was plain that the poor lonely deaf-mute had won 
for himself warm place in the village heart. His speech- 
less language was a universal one ; and perhaps, after 
all, he stood less helpless among the people than we 
did with our stammer of poor Itahan. 

After dinner we followed a thread of path down 
sharp terraces, and behind houses, into a meadow 
which one must cross to reach the ruins of the Castle 
of Cadore. The Castle was a castle so late as 1809. 
Now it is a ruin, and the ugly village church, they say, 
was built out of its stones. But it is far better as it is, 
— a great gateway tower, high battlements, several 
lengths of crumbling wall, and a high square tower in 
the middle. From its heights must be magnificent 
view of the valleys of the Piave and the Boita, and the 
grand mountam masses of dolomite in all directions. 
But we did not see this view ; we climbed no hill , we 
asked for no castle ; we knelt in the meadow among 
the flowers. The path was so narrow that two could 
not pass, unless one stepped out ; but to step out was 
like stepping into spicy sea. No foot could fall there 
without crushing more flowers than it would be easy 



72 



THE AMFEZZO PASS. 



to count, and the mere brushing by of garments stirred 
fragrance heavy hke incense. We were speechless ; 
we could not believe ; the mosaic fields of bloom we 
had seen on our way were dull and scanty. Then we 
said, ^' 0, no doubt the legend is true, that Titian, when 
he was only eleven years old, painted with juices of 
flowers a picture of the Madonna; this is the field 
where he picked the flowers ; and these are the same 
reds and blues and yellows which he used." Up 
and down in the meadow we went, picking flowers 
in the sort of frantic haste with which in dreams or in 
fairy stories men snatch enchanted gold in caves or 
palaces of wizards. If the meadow had melted away 
of a sudden, and left us empty-handed in a dusty place, 
I think it would have been less startling than it grew 
to be, to see each slope and hollow lying minute after 
minute unaltered, undiminished in color, while we filled 
our hands over and over again with flowers whose 
shapes and whose tints were all new to us. By the 
reckoning of clocks we were not in that meadow more 
than twenty minutes ; but we carried out of it thirty- 
two different kinds of flowers which no one of us ha^ 
ever seen before. Besides these there were dozens 
more, which we did not pick, because we knew them, 
— clovers, and gentians, and ladies'-tresses, and butter - 
cups, and columbines, and bellworts, and meadow-rue, 
and shepherd's-purse. We never saw such spot again. 
It is part of my creed that there is no other such spot 
in the world, and I call it Titian's Meadow. 

It is but a few moments' walk from this meadow to 
the house where he was born. It -is a poor httle cot- 
tage, low and black and smoky ; an old woman, who 
looked as if she might be a hundred or a thousand 
years old, was hobbling and mumbling about in the 
kitchen, over just such a stone platform of cooking- 
stove as we had left in the inn. She was used to re- 
ceiving visitors in the name of Titian, and had a glib 
string of improbable story at her tongue's end. The 



THE AMPEZZO PASS, 



n 



huge rafters overhead were burned and smoked into 
blacks and yelloAvs and browns, which were stronger 
witness to centuries than any words could give ; and 
an old stone fountain in front of the house, presided 
over by a nameless, featureless stone saint, plashed 
away into an eight-sided stone basin; a very dirty lit- 
tle boy was sailing a chip in it ; probably he looked not 
unlike another little boy who sailed chips in it four 
hundred years ago, and whose name now gives honor 
to the cottage walls in this inscription : " Within these 
humble walls- Tiziano Yecelli began his celebrated 
life." 

Titian is more honored by this inscription than by 
the full-length painting of him, which stretches up and 
down on the bell-tower of the Pretura. Anything 
uglier than the Pretura is seldom seen, and the ambi- 
tious Cadorini have made bad matters worse by stuc- 
coing the building from top to bottom and painting it 
in imitation of old stone. But they carefully refrained 
from disturbing the picture of Titian, and there it still 
stands in giant hideousness ; a man apparently twelve 
feet high, and weighing five or six hundred, swathed 
from neck to ankles in a stiff robe of bright blue, which 
has so little semblance of fold or fulness that it looks 
less like a robe than like a huge blue sarcophagus into 
which the unhappy painter had sunk up to his ears ; 
his left hand points to the " Casa Tiziano" ; and at his 
side, on a table covered with a flagrantly gaudy cloth, 
lie his palette and brushes; behind the whole, a 
straight wall of sky, ten shades bluer than the blue 
robe, and if possible more unnatural. The continued 
existence of this picture is proof that spirits do not 
revisit this earth ; or at any rate cannot make use of 
physical machinery to accomplish material ends in this 
atmosphere. Wherever Titian is to-day, he has not 
forgotten his beloved Cadore, and he would not let 
this colossal abomination look down into that piazza 
another night, if he could help himself 
4 



74 THE AMPEZZO PASS. 

From the Pretura to the church through the Sunday 
crowds of smiUng people; women with short, dark 
blue gowns and white or gray handkerchiefs tied in the 
Albanian fashion over their heads; men with higher 
hats, symptom of the nearing Tyrol ; children rosy and 
fat and merry, — comforting contrast to the pallid little 
ones of Yenice. No soul, old or young, but looked at 
us with straight, curious, friendly gaze; they are off 
the common routes of travel, the Cadorini, and are all 
the friendlier and nicer for it. The old sexton knew 
very well, however, as soon as we crossed the thresh- 
old of the church, what we would see ; and it was 
with great pride that he drew the curtain from the 
group of family portraits under name of Madonna and 
Saints, which hangs in the chapel of the Yecellio fam- 
ily, and which Titian painted. 

There seems odd mixture of reverence for earth and 
irreverence for heaven in the way the masters painted 
portraits of wives and nephews for Madonnas and Saints. 
In this picture, ^' San Tiziano " the patron saint of the 
Yecelli kneels on the right hand of the Madonna. He 
is, however, only Titian's nephew Marco, and the Ma- 
donna is Titian's wife ; while Titian's uncle Francesco 
figures, by help of a cross on his shoulder, as St. An- 
drew, and in one corner Titian himself appears as a so- 
ber acolyte. A more comfortable and domestic looking 
family group was never photographed under name of 
Smith or Jones. Except that the little baby curled up 
in the mother's lap is naked, there seems nothing un- 
natural (or supernatural) about their all happening to 
be there together just at that minute. 

There is another of Titian's pictures here^ said to have 
been painted when he was only twenty years old. 
This also is of a Madonna and Saints ; there were a 
few other pictures which the sexton pressed u© to see, 
a Pordenone, he said, and a Palma Yecchio: but we 
hked the open air of the market-place and the*' sight of 
the mountains better. Stands and wagons o*- truit and 



THE AMPEZZO PASS. 



75 



silk handkerchiefs and chickens and earthen pipkins 
filled the corners. Cadore is a rough country, and 
gives small reward to them that farm it, but it has 
always been famous for fruits. Even in the thirteenth 
century there came to be a proverb, 

" Cadore and Feltre for apples and pears, 
Serravalle for swords." 

The clouds began to gather and wheel among the 
crags of the dolomite mountains. They were ten thou- 
sand feet up in air, to be sure, and miles away to north 
and west and south ; but they meant rain, — rain close 
upon us, violent, pelting, driving rain. These were 
such sudden gatherings and massings of clouds as Titian 
had watched and studied and carried away in memory, 
and reproduced, when, living on the serene, soft, gliding 
level of Venice, he threw into so many of his pictures 
marvellous backgrounds of sharp, abrupt mountain 
outlines with clouds circling round their summits. 
Doubtless Yenetian critics who had not been in Cadore 
found these mountain backgrounds unnatural and im- 
possible. Certainly a faithful drawing of the weird 
and fantastic dolomites would seem simply grotesque 
caricature to one who had never seen them. Even 
a photograph would seem incredible. 

The peaks of Marmarolo and Duranno disappeared ; 
great sheets of mist came driving down, blotting out 
even the castle ; blotting out also every trace of con- 
tent and good-humor upon G-iacomo's face. This small 
addition to his prescribed route had been too much for 
his philosophy, and our delays had finally piled the 
last feather on the camel's back of his patience. Per- 
haps, however, we were unjust; perhaps he knew 
even better than we did the feebleness of the spectral 
horses which drew us slowly out of Pieve di Cadore 
in that streaming rain ; it was an uncanny atmosphere ; 
all shapes seemed lost; and then, again, all shape? 
seemed to loom and quiver and dance ; the black horse 



76 THE AMPEZZO PASS. 

looked white, and the white horse did not seem to be 
there, though we heard his languid footfalls. 

" Shut up the carriage, Griacomo," said we. '* It is 
of no use to keep it open in such a blinding storm." 

Quickly and silently he roofed us over with the ill- 
smelling leather flap ; and as silent as he, and almost 
as sullenly, — shall I confess ? — we took the stifling 
afternoon's journey to Cortina d' Ampezzo. We seemed 
driving in the teeth of sudden winter ; the rain changed 
to sleet and the wind howled; the jagged peaks of 
dolomite thrust themselves here and there out of the 
clouds as if they were being hurled at us by invisible 
giants. It was nearly eight o'clock when we drove 
into the little piazza of Cortina d' Ampezzo, Suddenly 
we halt. In the stormy twilight a woman has run 
across the road, and almost taken our horses by the 
head. " Are these the American ladies ? Then they 
are to come to our inn. Their friends are awaiting 
them there." 

This was one of the sisters Barbaria, who keep the 
*' House of the Star of Grold " ; and lest by any ill chance 
we might go to the rival inn, she had been watching 
the Cadore road all the afternoon. 

0, how beamed the pleasant English faces which 
smiled our welcome in that low doorway ! and how 
crackled the fire in the kitchen where two sisters Bar- 
baria, with high-crowned black hats on their heads, 
were washing dishes ; one sister Barbaria was picking 
feathers off tiny birds; another sister Barbaria was 
piling up our bags and bundles on her brawny arms ; 
another sister Barbaria was asking what we would 
have for supper ; and a fifth sister Barbaria was stand- 
in the hall looking on : five sisters Barbaria ! and they 
have kept the " Albergo Stella d' Oro " for many years, 
without any help from man. 

Presently appealed a sixth sister Barbaria, but she 
was a fine lady of quite other style. She was Barbaria 
no longer, having married a young Grerman engineer, 



7'HE AMPEZZO PASS. 



77 



a clever fellow who had had charge of that part of the 
Ampezzo road between Cortina d' Ampezzo and Ca- 
dore ; and, staying at the '^ Star of Grold," had found 
a wife among his landladies. This sister wore a silk 
gown and a show of jewelry, had been with her hus- 
band to Rome and Yenice, and was now summering at 
Cortina, like any other lady of means. But she was 
far less interesting than her guileless sisters, who had 
never been out of the village in which they were born, 
and who shared all the work of the inn, even the hard- 
est and most menial, with a sisterly good-will and 
good-cheer which were beautiful to see. 

The two who wore black hats hke common peasants, 
and who drudged all day in the low basement kitchen 
and outhouses, seemed as happy and loving as the others, 
who were much better dressed, and who cared for the 
rooms, waited at table, kept accounts, etc. 

One of these was a woman who would have been 
an artist if she had not been an innkeeper and lived in 
Cortina. It was pathetic to see how this poor soul 
had found outlet for her artistic impulse in works of 
worsted and crochet cotton. The '' best room " of 
the " Star of Grold " was decorated with her handi- 
work, — full long curtains of knit lace at the windows 
and over the bed ; a counterpane of the same lace ; a 
full draping for the toilet-table ; and crocheted covers 
for all the chairs. The patterns were all singularly 
graceful and pretty. Lifting the chair covers, we found, 
to our astonishment, that the chair bottoms were all 
most elaborately worked in gay worsteds on cloth. 
Then we said to one of the sisters, '' How pretty these 
things are ! Did you make them ? " 

Her plain old face lit up with pleasure. " no ; my 
sister Anita made them all. She does most beautiful 
work. Sister Anita. She shall show you." And run- 
ning out, she called Anita, who came shyly but with 
pleasure; poor, brown, withered, simple old maiden 
woman, whose one joy had buen to fashion these gay 



78 



THE AMPEZZO PASS. 



flowers. She brought in her hand pieces of black and 
brown broadcloth, enough for half a dozen chairs and 
two crickets, most elaborately embroidered. 

The patterns were stiff, and the colors not always 
good. 

" We have to take what we can get, here in this 
poor place," said Sister Anita ; sometimes I think, if I 
could go myself to Brixen, I could surely find prettier 
patterns, but I must send always. Are there not pret- 
tier patterns ? " she asked with pathetic eagerness. 
Could any human heart have been flinty enough not 
to equivocate in reply to this question of this poor 
hungry soul? Then when she found that we were so 
interested in her work, and admired it so heartily, she 
darted away and returned presently with great wreaths 
and bunches of worsted flowers, — lihes and poppies 
and gentians and pinks, and long ivy vines, made upon 
wires, and really beautiful. These were to decorate 
the house with onfesta day; she had many drawers full 
of them ; had enough to decorate the whole house, '* till 
it looked like garden ! " And no one had ever taught 
her to make them ; she had picked the flowers in the 
field, she said, and set them up in a glass before her, and 
copied them as nearly as she could. " Why do you 
not make up these chairs and crickets ? " we thought- 
lessly asked ; '^ they are too pretty to be laid away in 
a drawer." 

Anita replied that she was too poor y it would take 
much money. But Anita did not tell the truth. I 
saw m her cheek another story, written in red, as in- 
deed it might well be, — the story which had in it a 
hope deferred, perhaps lost forever. Poor Anita, she 
is old and ugly. I am afraid the embroidered chairs 
will never grace a weddmg-feast. 

Next morning we looked out on snow ; everywhere 
fine feathery dust of snow ; thin rims of ice in the 
stone fountain before the inn, and solid masses of white 
on the sides of the mountains. But the first hour of 



THE AMP^EZZO PASS, 



79 



sun melted it all oflf the meadows, and left the flowers 
brighter than ever, glistening as after a heavy dew. 
Tiny white lilies not two inches long nor more than 
eight inches from the ground, and low gentians of a 
blue like the blue of lapis-lazuli, — these were grownig 
everywhere ; we filled our hands with them within five 
minutes walk of the inn. Later in the day the G-er- 
man engineer brought in a bouquet which he had gath- 
ered farther up on the hills, of such flowers as we had 
seen at Pieve di Cadore ; twenty-four different kinds 
in that bouquet, all colors, all shapes, all fragrances ! 

There is one shoemaker in Cortina d' Ampezzo. His 
shop is in an upper chamber, about eight feet square. 
There I found him sitting on a low seat, with a leath- 
ern apron, and spectacles way down his nose, holding a 
shoe wrong side up between his knees, and sewing 
away like any old man m Lynn. I sat down gravely 
in front of him, held out a morocco bow in one hand 
and a tattered American boot in the other, and asked 
if he could sew the bow on the boot. He was a G-er- 
man, but the apparition of my boot was too much for 
even his phlegm , he turned it over and over and over. 
A boot that buttoned he had never seen , I showed 
him my button-hook ; his amazement deepened ; he 
buttoned and unbuttoned the boot with it, grunting 
out thicker and thicker, " Jas, jas," at every turn of 
the instrument Finally he set about the sewing on 
of the bow. The door opened ; more men of Cortina 
came in ; they had seen me go up ; they scented ad- 
venture ; one, two, three ; the room grew very hot , 
the buttonhook was passed about; the three men 
turned it up and down, and looked at me. I could not 
understand a dozen words they said. It was very em- 
barrassing. The time came to put on my boot ; the 
shoemaker leaned forward to see how I did it ; the 
three men of Cortina crowded around and stooped 
down to see how I did it ; a sense of the ludicrous 
helplessness of my situation so overcame me that I 



8o THE AMPEZZO PASS. 

broke out into a genuine laugh, which, improper as it 
might have been, seemed to put me quite at my ease 
again, and I displayed to the good souls the mechan- 
ism of button-hook, button, and button-hole as com- 
placently as if I had been a vender of the patent. 
Then they all four accompanied me to the door, and 
bade me good morning with the reverence due to the 
owner of sucL mysterious boots. But I resolved not 
to take off my boots again in Tyrolese shoe-shops ! 

How bitterly we regretted the ignorant haste in 
which we had, at Conegliano, pledged ourselves to ask 
but one day's rest at Cortina d' Ampezzo. We would 
gladly have stayed with the sisters Barbaria a week , 
we comforted ourselves by air castles of another sum- 
mer in which we would come agam and stay a month, 
bringing with us them whom we most loved. Hope- 
fully the elder sister made it clear to us that she would 
welcome us as guests for a month at seven francs a day. 
A month, face to face with those wonderful pink and yel- 
low and gray and white and salmon-colored mountains 
of dolomite ! A month of those flowers ! Thirty times 
as many as we had picked that day; and dear soft 
brown eyes which we knew, to light up with joy at 
sight of all we could bring ! What a dream it was , 
on what shore does it stand now, pale in its death, but 
transfigured in its resurrection among other sweet 
things which we dare to call lost, when they have 
only gone before ! 

The dining-room windows of the "Star of G-old" 
are filled with geraniums; not "plants," not "bushes," 
as we commonly see, but trees, — trees tall, branching, 
sturdy, and bearing flowers as apple-trees bear apples , 
blossoms scarlet and rose-pink, and marvellous white 
with purple and crimson markings. Lavishly the elder 
sister gathers them for departing guests ; and we drove 
off in the early afternoon, each of us with a big bunch 
in our lap. 

We were not yet at the summit of the Pass. Hours 



THE AMPEZZO PASS, 8i 

more of slow climbing among larches and pines and 
rocks and flowers ; at last the larches disappeared, then 
the pines; nothing was left but stunted firs. On a 
dark icy plateau at the very top of the Pass we came 
suddenly upon a great field of blue forget-me-nots; 
just beyond that, a silent lake which must be unfath- 
omable, to look so black; and then we began to go 
slowly down, down the other side ; soft wooded slopes, 
and valleys of grain, and a look of thrift. We felt 
almost like dodging, as if we were pelted with pebbles, 
when the G-erman gutturals first began to fly in the 
air. We forgot the G-erman for " chicken," and fell 
back on *' Kut-kut-ka-da-kut," which is language for 
" chicken" aU the world over. We shuddered at sight 
of the huge efiigies of the dead Christ, at corners of the 
roads ; we found the men surly, and women and men 
alike hideous, and hideously alike ; we no longer thought 
the horses too slov/ ; we grudged each mile that they 
took us farther from Italy. Each of us had left half 
her heart in Venice, and the other half in the " House 
of the Star of G-old," with the sisters Barbaria. 



A MAY-DAY IN ALBANO. 

'TTT'E went Maying on donkeys, and we found 
VV more flowers than could have been picked in 
a month. What a May-day for people who had all 
their lives before gone Maying in india-rubbers, and an 
east-wind, on the Atlantic coast of America ; had been 
glad and grateful over a few saxifrages and houstonias, 
and knelt in ecstasy if they found a shivering clump 
of dog-tooth violets. 

Our donkey man looked so like a New Englander 
that I have an uncomfortable curiosity about him : slim, 
thin, red-haired, freckled, blue-eyed, hollow-chested, I 
believe he had run away in his youth from Barnstable, 
and drifted to the shores of the Alban Lake. I watched 
him in vain to discover any signs of his understandmg 
our conversation, but I am sure I heard him say ^' gee " 
to the donkeys. 

The donkey boy, too, had 'New England eyes, hon- 
est dark blue gray, with perpetual laugh in them. It 
was for his eyes I took him along, he being as super- 
fluous as a fifth leg to the donkey. But when he 
danced up and down with bare feet on the stones in 
front of the hotel door, and twisted and untwisted his 
dirty little fingers in agony of fear lest I should say no, 
all the while looking up into my face with a hopeful 
imploring smile, so like one I shall never see again, I 
loved him, and engaged him then and there always to 
walk by my donkey's nose so long as I rode donkeys 
in Albano. I had no sooner done this than, presto, my 
boy disappeared ; and all I could see in his stead was 
a sort of human pin-wheel, with ten dangerous toeb 



A MA Y-DA V IN ALBANO. ^^ 

for spokes, flying round and round by my side. What 
a pleased Italian boy, aged eleven, can do in the way 
of revolving somersets passes belief, even while you 
are looking at it. But in a moment he came down 
right end up, and, with the air of a mature protector, 
took my donkey by the rope, and off we went. 

I never find myself forming part of a donkey, with a 
donkey man in rear, without being reminded of all the 
pictures I have seen of the " Flight into Egypt," and 
being impressed anew with a sense of the terrible time 
that Holy Family must have had trying to make haste 
on such kind of animal : of all beasts, to escape from a 
hostile monarch on ! And one never pities Joseph any 
more for having to go on foot; except for the name of 
the thing, walking must always be easier. 

If I say that we climbed up a steep hill to the Capu- 
chin church and convent, and then bore off to the 
right along the shores of the Alban Lake, and resolved 
to climb on till we reached the Convent of Palazzuola, 
which is half-way up the side of Monte Cavo, it does 
not mean anything to people who do not know the 
Alban Lake and Monte Cavo. Yet how else can I tell 
w^here we had our Maying ? The donkey path from 
Albano up to Palazzuola — and there is no other way 
of going up — zigzags along the side of the hill, which 
is the south shore of the Alban Lake. Almost to the 
last it is thickly wooded ; looking at this south shore, 
from a distance, those who have been through the path 
can trace its line faintly marked among the tree-tops, 
like a fine thread indenting them; but strangers to it 
would never dream that it was there. The path is 
narrow ; only wide enough for two donkeys to pass, 
if both behave well. 

On the left hand you look doAvn into the mystic lake, 
which is always dark and troubled, no matter how 
blue the sky ; never did I see a smile or a placid look 
of rest on the Alban Lake. Doubtless it is still linked 
with fates and oracles we do not know. On the right 



84 A MA Y-DA Y IN ALBANO. 

hand the hill stretches up, sometimes sharply in cliffs, 
sometimes in gentle slopes with moist hollows full of 
ivies and ferns; everywhere are flowers in clusters, 
beds, thickets. It seemed paltry to think of putting a 
few into a basket, hopeless to try to call the roll of their 
names. First come the vetches — scrambling in and 
out, hooking on to everything without discrimination ; 
surely a vetch is the most easily contented of plants ; 
it will hold by a grass stalk, or an ilex trunk, or lie flat 
on the roadside, and blossom away as fast as it can in 
each place. Yellow, and white, and crimson, and scar- 
let, and purple, and pink, and pale green ; — seven 
different vetches we brought home. Periwinkle, 
matted and tangled, with flowers one inch and a half 
in diameter (by measurement) ; violets in territories, 
and of all shades of blue ; Solomon's-seals of three 
different kinds ; dark blue bee-larkspur whose stems 
were two feet high; white honeysuckle wreathing 
down from tall trees; feathery eupatoriums; great arums, 
not growing like ours, on a slender stalk, but looking 
like a huge cornucopia made out of yellow corn-husks, 
with one end set in the ground; red catchfly and 
white ; tiny pinks not bigger than heads of pins ; 
clovers of new sorts and sizes ; one of a delicate yel- 
low, a pink one in small fiat heads, and another grow- 
ing in plumes or tassels two inches long, crimson at 
base and shading up to white at top. One could not 
fancy this munched in mouthfuls even by sacred cat- 
tle ; it should be eaten, head by head, like asparagus, 
nibbled slowly down to the luscious color at the stem. 
The holly was in blossom and the white thorn, and 
huge bushes of yellow broom swung out across our 
path at every turn ; we thought they must light it up 
at night. Here and there were communities of crimson 
cyclamens, that most bewildering of all Italy's flowers. 
'' Mad violets " the Italians call them, and there is a 
pertinence in the name ; they hang their heads and 
look down as if no violet could be more shy, but all 



A MA Y-DA Y IN ALBANO. 



85 



the while their petals turn back like the ears of a 
vicious horse, and their whole expression is of the most 
fascinating mixture of modesty and mischief. Always 
with the cyclamens we found the forget-me-nots, nod- 
ding above them in fringing canopies of blue ; also the 
little flower that the Itahans call forget-me-not, which 
is the tiniest of things, shaped like our forget-me-not, 
but of a pale purple color. Dandelions there were too, 
and buttercups, warming our hearts to see ; we would 
not admit that they were any more golden than under 
the colder sun where we had first picked them. Upon 
the chickweed, however, we looked in speechless 
wonder: chickweed it was, and no mistake, — but if 
the canary-birds in America could only see it ! One 
bud would be a breakfast. One bud, do I say ? I can 
fancy a thrifty Dicky eating out a ragged hole in one 
side, like a robin from a cherry, and leaving the rest 
for next day. The flowers are as wonderful as the 
buds, whitening the ground and the hedges every- 
where with their shining white stars, as large as silver 
quarters of dollars used to be. 

Now I come with shamefacedness to speak of the 
flowers whose names I did not know. What brutish 
people we are, even those of us who think we love 
Nature well, to live our lives out so ignorant of her 
good old famihes ! We are quite sure to know the 
names and generations of hundreds of insignificant 
men and women, merely because they go to our church, 
or live in our street; and we should feel ourselves 
much humiliated if we were not on what is called 
^' speaking terms " with the best people wherever we 
go. But we are not ashamed to spend summer after 
summer face to face with flowers and trees and stones, 
and never so much as know them by name. I wonder 
they treat us so well as they do, provide us with food 
and beauty so often, poison us so seldom. It must be 
only out of the pity they feel, being diviner than we. 

The flowers which I did not know were many more 



S6 A MA Y-DA V IN ALBANO. 

than those which I knew, and most of them I cannot 
describe. There was a blue flower hke a hverwort, 
only larger and lighter, and with a finely notched 
green leaf; there was a tiny bell-shaped flower, yellow, 
growing by twos and threes, and nodding perpetually ; 
there was a trumpet-shaped flower the size of a thim- 
ble, which had scarlet and blue and purple all blended 
together in fine lines and shadings; there was another 
trumpet-shaped flower, quite small, which had its blue 
and purple and scarlet in separate trumpets but on one 
stem ; there was a tiny blue flower, shaped like a ver- 
bena, but set at top of a cluster of shut buds whose 
hairy calyxes were of a brilliant claret red; there was 
a yellow flower, tube-shaped, slender, long, white at 
the brim and brown at the base, and set by twos, in 
shelter of the joining of its leaves to the stalk ; there 
was a fine feathery white flower, in branching heads, 
like our wild parsley, but larger petalled, and a white, 
star-shaped flower which ran riot everywhere; and 
besides these, were so mam^ others which I have no 
colors to paint, that at night of this wonderful May- 
day, when we numbered its flowers, there were fifty- 
two kinds. 

As we came out of the woods upon the craggy pre- 
cipices near the convent, we found the rocks covered 
with purple and pink thyme. The smell of it, crushed, 
under the donkey s hoofe, was delicious. Somebody 
was homesick enough to say that it was like going 
across a New England kitchen, the day before Thanks- 
giving, and spilling the sweet marjoram. 

The door of the cloister was wide open. Two monks 
were standing just outside, absorbed in watching 
an artist who was making a sketch of the old fountain. 
The temptation was too strong for one member of our 
party ; when nobody looked, she sprang in and walked 
on. determined \£) have one look over the parapet 
down into the lake She found herself under old ilex- 
trees, among dark box hedges, and the stone parapet 



A MAY-DAY IN ALBANO, Sy 

many rods ahead. A monk, weeding among the cab- 
bages, lifted his head, turned pale at sight of her, and 
looked instantly down at his weeding again, doubt- 
less crossing himself, and praying to be kept from 
temptation. She saw other monks hurrying to and 
fro at end of the garden, evidently consulting what 
was to be done. She knew no one of them would 
dare to come and speak to a woman, so she pushed on 
for the parapet, and reached it. Presently a workman, 
not a monk, came running breathlessly, '' Signorina, 
Signorina, it is not permitted to enter here." 

"I do not understand Italian," said she, smiling 
and bowing, and turning away and looking over the 
parapet. Down, down, hundreds of feet below, lay 
the lake, black, troubled, unfathomed. A pebble could 
have been swung by a string from this parapet far out 
into the lake. It was a sight not to be forgotten. The 
workman gesticulated with increased alarm and hor- 
ror : "0 dearest Signorina, indeed it is impossible 
for you to remain here. The holy fathers," — at this 
moment the donkey man came hurrying in for dear 
life, with most obsequious and deprecating gestures 
and words, beckoning the young lady out, and explain- 
ing that it was all a mistake, that the Signorina was 
Inglese and did not understand a word of Italian, for 
which gratuitous lie I hope he may be forgiven. I am 
sure he enjoyed the joke ; at any rate, we did, and I 
shall always be glad that one woman has been inside 
the closed cloister of Palazzuola, and looked from its 
wall down into the lake. 

We climbed round the convent on a narrow rocky 
path overhanging the lake, to see an old tomb '' sup- 
posed to be that of Cneius Cornelius Scipio Hispal- 
lus." We saw no reason to doubt its being his. Then 
we climbed still farther up, into a field where there was 
the most wonderful massing of flowers we had yet 
seen : the whole field was literally a tangle of many- 
colored vetches, clovers, chickweed, and buttercups. 



'S8 A MAY-DAY IN ALBANO, 

We stumbled and caught our feet in the vetches, as 
one does in blackberry-vines , but if we had fallen v^e 
should have fallen into the snov^^y arms of the white 
narcissus, with which the whole field gUstened like a 
silver tent under the sun. Never have I seen any 
flower show so solemnly beautiful, unless it might have 
been a great morning opening I once saw of giant 
pond-lilies, in a pond on Block Island, But here there 
were, in addition to the glittering white disks, purple 
and pink and yellow orchids, looking, as orchids always 
do, like imprisoned spirits just about to escape. 

As we came down the mountain the sunset lights 
kindled the whole Campagna into a flaming sea. The 
Mediterranean beyond seemed, by some strange opti- 
cal effect, to be turned up around the horizon, like a 
golden rim holding the misty sea. The lake looked 
darker and darker at every step of our descent. Mt. 
Soracte stood clear cut against the northern sky, and 
between us and it went up the smoke of that enchant- 
ress, Eome, the great dome of St. Peter's looming and 
fading and looming and fading again through the yel- 
low mist, like a gigantic bubble, as the power of the 
faith it represents has loomed, and faded, and loomed, 
through all the ages. 



AN AFTERNOON IN MEMORIAM, IN 
SALZBURG. 

PARACELSUS, ST. RUPERT, AND MOZART. 

THESE were the names on our list, the guide-book, 
and not we, being responsible for the odd suc- 
cession. 

Poor Paracelsus ! it has always seemed that the 
world dealt hardly by him. Undoubtedly he believed 
that there was an Elixir of Life which could be put in 
a bottle, and a philosopher's stone, at touch of which 
all things would turn into gold. We have all been 
searching after these very things all our days, and 
without half so much philanthropy about it as he had ; 
for we try, by secret ways, after only just so much 
elixir as will keep our own poor little body fresh, and 
enough gold to provide it with clothes and pleasures. 
But he spoke openly of his researches, and meant to sell 
his elixir to the whole world, and to hire out his 
philosopher's stone by the day. Three hundred and 
twenty-eight years ago he died in Salzburg, and is 
buried in the churchyard of San Sebastian. The house 
he died in is still pointed out, but that had no interest 
to us, while the grave drew us strongly. What uncon- 
scious tribute we pay to the doctrine of the resurrection 
by the love and honor in which we hold graves, cen- 
tury after century! Surely in our hearts we believe 
that each such spot becomes forever unlike all other 
ground : by whatever process the dear flesh crumbles, 
returns to dust, and is changed into the leaf, flower, 
and seed that perish, in our hearts we believe that the 
grave remains a grave, and that at least this much is sure ; 



90 AN AFTERNOON IN MEMORIAM, 

that the happj, soaring, growing spirit, which has gone 
on in the worlds, will never forget where the tiny spot 
is on this one in which its human body was laid. 

In the time of the cholera, old men and women of 
Salzburg went in crowds to pray over the grave of 
Paracelsus, hoping to secure his protection against the 
disease; such immortal force is there to an earnestly 
believed idea. Paracelsus, even dead, and three hun- 
dred years dead, still finds believers in his Ehxir of Life. 
Doubtless, also, this praying saved many people from 
cholera ; faith being the best Elixir of Life yet dis- 
covered. 

We had no chance to benefit by any efficacy which 
may still linger in his tombstone, for find it we could 
not, though we walked patiently round and round, and 
over and over the San Sebastian graveyard. Sacristans 
are always out of the way when you wish them in, and 
vice versa. There were several sorrowful people there, 
planting flowers on a grave, and a lifeless old man 
saying his beads before a shrine, but no sacristan, and 
nobody who had ever heard of Paracelsus. Prolbably 
we saw the stone and walked over it fifty times, for 
there were many so sunken and old that we could make 
nothing of the letters on them, and over the oldest and 
most illegible we spent most time and emotion. The 
graveyard is so full of stones and crosses, and boxes 
of earth with little gardens in them, that it looks 
like some sort of sepulchral shop. The crowding in 
these G-erman churchyards has something positively 
blasphemous about it, and is noways redeemed by the 
setting of flowers and hanging of wreaths. The whole 
expression is of jostle and jam, suggests all sorts of ir- 
reverent conjectures, and robs the words "' Grod's Acre " 
of all meaning. When Grod has so many acres, it is a 
Bin to so crowd graves. 

Around three sides of the San Sebastian churchyard 
are cloister-like galleries, fenced off by iron railings, 
and divided into compartments for families. Each en- 



IN SALZBURG. 91 

closure was filled with plants in pots, running ivies, and 
crosses, usually one large and ugly stone in each com- 
partment, and on the crosses most hideous wreaths 
and pictures ; paper wreaths of rusty black and dingy 
white, looking more like sea-weed than anything else, 
twists of old limp crape, old evergreen wreaths dark- 
brown with age, and common penny pictures with 
tattered artificial flowers round them. But the final 
horror was in a sort of grotto near the gate. Behind 
an iron railing in this grotto were shelves holding 
rows of ghastly skulls, carefully arranged, piled one 
above another, and labelled with their names. Whether 
these were skulls which had been crowded out of 
their graves by the increase of population in the San 
Sebastian churchyard, I have no right to say ; but this 
seemed the most probable solution of their being 
where they were. A mumbling old woman stood by 
one side, and peered in between the rails, her head 
shaking with palsy, and her poor skinny hands clutch- 
ing a rosary. ^' We are all alike in death, alike in 
death," muttered she, half to herself and half to us. 
We walked faster to get away from her. She sound- 
ed and felt like an ill omen. 

Next on our list came the Church of St. Peter's; 
with enthusiasm somewhat damped as to graveyards, 
we drove there. Here, as before, crowded graves, 
hideous stones, faded wreaths, and no sacristan. We 
saw in the church a monument to Michael Haydn, 
brother of the composer, too ugly to be described. 
We saw St. Rupert's cell, which is a hole in a rock, 
and St. Rupert's tomb, and then we went on, with 
still damper enthusiasm, to look up Mozart. This is 
always the way, I find, in a day of sight-seeing of the 
historical or memorial order. In the morning, heroes 
are heroes, and their graves are shrines. By noon, 
they are nobodies, and you don't care where they are 
buried ; or, at least, you don't believe they are buried 
where people say they are. 



92 AJV AFTERNOON IN MEMOR/AM, 

But all our weary indifference vanished the moment 
we crossed the threshold of the chamber in which Salz- 
burg keeps the relics of her Mozart. We were met 
by a little sturdy red-faced man, all smiles, from whose 
lips it would not have surprised us to hear, '^ Och, an' 
it 's mesilf that 's afther bein' glad to say yees : an' ye'll 
plaze to walk in, shure." Eeally, it is impossible to 
accustom one's self to this perpetual recurrence of Cork 
in South Grermany ; it sounds as oddly to hear these 
red-headed, red-faced, freckled fellows speaking Ger- 
man, as it would to hear a squad of laborers on the 
Erie railroad speaking Latin. However, nothing but 
Grerman could this little man speak, and an avalanche 
there was of that, so enthusiastic and warm was he in 
displaying his cherished relics. 

Nothing daunted by our ignorance of his language, 
he went on and on, pouring out information, till, partly 
by dint of his reiterations, and partly by the mesmeric 
effect of his determination that we should understand, 
we really did comprehend much that he said. 

On the walls were portraits of Mozart at different 
ages, beginning with him at six years old, in the court 
dress which he wore when he played before Maria 
Theresa. In this he is a round-cheeked, stupid, obsti- 
nate-looking little boy, just such as play in the dirt in 
every road in Grermany to-day. 

A large and not very good oil-painting shows him as 
a young man playing a duet with his sister, to the se- 
vere critic their father, who sits by listening with his 
violin resting on his arm. Above them hangs the pic- 
ture of their mother, a portrait within a portrait, far 
the most striking face in the group. If the portraits 
be good, it is easy to see that however much me- 
chanical facility Mozart may have inherited from his 
father, the Chapel-Master, his tine quality of genius 
came from his mother. 

Constance Weber, with her hair in indesciibable snarl, 
hangs between Mozart s mother and sister. If she 



IN SALZBURG. 



93 



habitually wore her hair in that fashion, Mozart's mar- 
riage is inexplicable. Farther on she appears again, 
subdued into the meekest of old ladies, with light curls 
and a close cap, the Frau Nissen. Her '^2d Mann," 
as the good little Irishman wrote it down for us, was 
one Nissen, a Danish consul, and a very commonplace- 
looking Nissen he was, if one may judge from his pic- 
ture, which looked strangely out of place in the room 
devoted to relics of Mozart. 

In the middle of the room stood Mozart's piano, a 
small one of only five octaves, but shaped like the 
grand pianos of to-day. Tinkle, tinkle, went the keys 
under the little man's red puffy fingers. We did not 
dare ask him to let it alone, but with each note that 
he struck it became harder than ever to fancy Mozart's 
ever having been seated before it. No wonder that 
Beethoven said disrespectful things of pianos, if this 
be a specimen of the best their day afforded. What 
would he and Mozart say to an Erard or Chickering 
of 1869 ! Against the wall stood a still more old-fash- 
ioned thing with still more pathetic tinkle to its keys, 
a httle old spinet, on which, if we understood correctly, 
Mozart composed his Eequiem. This, too, we wished 
to see locked forever ; how much more touching me- 
morial of a great musician would be his instrument 
forever locked, never to be played on by mortal hand, 
than set wide open in a museum to be thrummed by 
masters and misses in the same mood in which they 
would carve their names on the legs, if it were per- 
mitted. 

My letter will be too long, if I tell in detail of all 
the interesting relics in this room ; manuscript music, 
composed and written by Mozart at the age of eight ; 
old exercise books from which he had practised ; four 
large volumes of manuscript letters ; one short note 
which can be bought for the small sum of two hundred 
francs ; an old frayed and faded satin letter-case, which 
was embroidered for him by one of his wife's sisters, 



94 A^ AFTERNOON IN MEMORIAM, ETC. 

and which he always carried in his pocket ; a seal and 
a ring which he always wore ; these were tossing about 
loose in a common wooden box, and with them a gar- 
net cross which had belonged to his sister. We said 
hard things of the Frau Nissen for not having made 
sure that these treasures were kept sacred from public 
view. 

We bought a bad photograph of the fat little boy in 
court dress, wrote our names in a big book, where all 
the musical and many of the unmusical celebrities of the 
world had written theirs before us, and then we bade 
good by to the pleasant and voluble G-erman Irishman. 
On the way home we looked at the bronze statue of 
Mozart in the centre of the Michael Platz. It is stiff 
and unmeaning. Then we drove past two houses, in 
one of which he was born, and in the other lived ; but 
by this time we were tired again, and were seized with 
sudden doubts as to the truth of the inscriptions on 
their walls. At any rate, whoever has or has not been 
born, lived, and died in them, they look exactly like four 
fifths of the dreary, pale-colored houses in Salzsburg, 



THE RETURNED VETERANS' FEST IN 
SALZBURG. 

*' ' Ah, that I do not know,' quoth he ; 
* But 't was a famous victory.' " 

THE Austrians must have the same happy faculty of 
being pleased about victories v^hich the old man 
in the memorable Waterloo ballad had. Seeing them 
yesterday (June 27, 1869), one v^ould have supposed 
that the Austrian eagle never slunk out of Italy, and 
that every one of these veterans had v^on his title to 
the name, by helping on a series of glorious successes. 
On some of the banners there w^ere even names of 
places v^here they had memorable defeats, and the 
wind seemed to take particular pains to keep those 
banners spread out at full size; but I dare say few 
people knew the difference : the beer was good, and 
the bands played the tunes of conquerors. 

All the way from Innspruck to Salzburg we had caught 
glimpses in the little towns of pine arches, green mot- 
toes, and a general expression of '' fest " ; the Veterans 
were in our very train, many of them, and we saw 
them kissing each other, but did not know who they 
were, nor understand what it all meant, till at Salzburg, 
in the hall of the Europa, we read the pink placard 
giving the programme for the Festival the next day. 

They begin things early in this country : " Music at 
six " was first on the list. Sure enough, at six o'clock, 
there it was, band after band, and a procession of 
Veterans (all under fifty years of age), marching past 
our windows. Each man had a bunch of green leaves 
in his hat, and one involuntarily thought of St. Patrick's 
Day in New York. At ten o'clock there was to be a 



96 



THE RETURNED VETERANS' FEST 



High Mass in one of the churches : armed with a 
phrase-book and a dictionary, we set out to take part 
in the proceedings. the delusion of a phrase- 
book ! Lives there a man who ever found in one 
the thing he wished to say ? Who does not throw it 
down in a rage a hundred times a month, and resolve 
never to look in it again? And then in cooler mo- 
ments, when you have no immediate need of them, the 
sentences sound so sensible, so probable, that you go 
back again to your old belief that they must be of use, 
will certainly come in play to-morrow. As for pocket 
dictionaries, they are almost as vexing as the phrase- 
books. If you have knowledge enough to get much 
good out of one, you have knowledge enough to do 
without one, and might as well have something else in 
your pocket. But the blessed language of signs ! For 
that one's respect increases daily ; during this one short 
month in G-ermany, I have come to doubt whether to 
be a mute is so terrible a thing as we suppose. Taking 
into account that they are usually born also deaf, and 
thereby escape so much dreadful discord of cannon, 
pianos, and bad English, it is by no means clear which 
way should swing the balance of their loss and gain. 

The great element of probability of our success this 
day was the certainty that the driver of our einspanner 
undoubtedly wanted to see the same things that we 
wanted to see ; on this it was safe to count. By help 
of this we saw the Festival, and never once opened 
our phrase-book or dictionary. 

Firstly, the square in which stood the church in 
which the mass was to be. It was hung with flags, 
and every window was festooned with long wreaths 
of green, fastened by rosettes of black and yellow. 
Unwillingly enough we confessed to each other that, 
setting patriotism aside, the effect of the hated Austrian 
colors was finer than that of blue and red. The crowd 
was great, but quiet and grave to an inexplicable 
degree. It seems to me, thus far, even truer of the 



IN SALZBURG. 



97 



G-ermans than of the Americans, that they take their 
pleasure solemnly. The other day I saw forty or fifty 
peasants at a wedding dance in a little inn, and, though 
I watched them for half an hour, not a laugh did I see, 
except on one or two of the youngest faces, and they 
were laughing at us. The rest whirled slowly round, 
with a stolid, uninterested expression which could not 
be outdone in the Ocean House in Newport. Several 
of the men had the comfort of cigars in their mouths, 
which the Newport men can't have. It seems some- 
thing of a feat to waltz and smoke at the same time. 

It was said that more than six thousand Veterans 
had come to this Festival. I think there were almost 
as many more of the peasants, who had come in from 
the country to look at them. It was hard to move in 
the streets. Country people always seem to have 
more than the usual allowance of elbow ; and when to 
the world-wide country elbow is added the German 
woman's hip, the estimate of standing room for each 
person must be made big. The men were gayer than 
the women ; truer to nature in that, I suppose, than 
we, since in fish, flesh, and fowl we see always the 
male with brightest colors. But it strikes civilized 
eyes oddly to see men with huge shining silver buttons 
on the fronts of their coats, two and three rows, bright 
bows of green or red at the knee, and in their hats 
feathers and flowers and ribbons- while women are 
wearing plain short black petticoats, and on their heads 
either sombre black hats, high - crowned, broad- 
brimmed, and without ornament, except a couple of 
gold tassels , or else, still worse, a thick black silk ker- 
chief bound tight over the whole head, low on the 
forehead, down nearly to the eyebrows, and twisted 
in some mysterious knot at the back, so as to leave 
one long ear-like flap hanging down on each side. 
Anything uglier could not be invented. It made young, 
good-looking faces hideous ; and on old and plain ones 
the effect was uncanny. Many of the women wore 



98 THE RETURNED VETERANS' FEST 

round their necks broad necklaces of twenty or thirty 
rows of small silver beads, clasped tight in front by a 
great buckle of colored stones and gilt These seemed, 
however, to be worn less for ornament than to pre- 
vent or conceal the frightful goitre with which four 
fifths of them were disfigured. One's first sight of a 
goitre swelling is something never to be forgotten. 

Mingling in picturesquely with the peasants from 
the country, and the common people of Salzburg, were 
to be seen here and there showy Austrian officers, Eng- 
lish heads of families, with the families behind in water- 
proof, commercial travellers of all nations, nobilities in 
fine carriages, and American women, — to be known 
from all the rest by their quick peering faces, and their 
being sure to get in everywhere. Eeally, I think that 
the day after Babel could not have seen on that memo- 
rable plain more sorts of men than made up the crowd 
in this square yesterday. 

At last, by much help from many people, we got 
into the church and a seat. A High Mass is always 
an ordeal of endurance • but this one was made endur- 
able by intervals of Mozart's music, and by the Vet- 
erans' faces. They filled the seats, and stood in double 
rows down the central aisle. Had I seen them in 
New York I should have said, " From where did all 
these Irishmen come ? " And those that did not look 
like Irishmen looked like Yankees. Dark hair and 
eyes were the exception ; red hair and freckles were 
common ; and almost universal was the hard, keen, 
overworked look which we know so well in America. 
The more intelligent the face, the surer it was to have 
this expression. The poorer peasants looked calmer 
and stupid. Next me sat a barefooted boy, with a 
heavy, unawakened face. He wore in his hat a gray 
feather and an Edelweiss. When I made signs to him 
that I wanted the Edelweiss, and took it out of. his 
hat, and put fifteen kreutzers in his hand in exchange 
for it, he looked blankly at the money and at me, as 



IN SALZBURG. gg 

if he had not common behef in his senses. But his 
motlier kissed my hand in gratitude. 

At the end of the mass the organ and band struck 
up one of Wagner's best marclies, and we and the Vet- 
erans poured out. Tlie Veterans had the best of it 
tliougli, and got so firmly wedged in the square, aliead 
of us, tliat before we could fight our way through to 
our carriage, we were as tired as ever they were on 
the fields of Lombardy. 

The banners and flags were all stacked on one side 
of the square, and made a fine show of color beyond 
the swaying mass of the Veterans' black hats, with the 
green leaves and feathers in them From a wmdow 
on the right, orators began to speak most eloquently, 
I believe ; but I only know that they all gesticulated 
wildly with white-gloved hands, and waited, like all 
stump speakers, at the places where they expected the 
Veterans to throw up their hats and cheer. 

In the afternoon the performances were to consist 
of music, cakes, and ale on the Monchsberg. This 
sounded simple and virtuous; but how little we 
dreamed what it meant till we saw it. Why the 
Monchsberg — Monk's Hill — is so called I do not know, 
unless it be because it is a continuation of the high 
rocky ridge on which the great castle of Salzburg 
stands ; and in that the archbishops of Salzburg lived, 
held court, and defied their enemies for centuries. It 
is a wonderful wall of rock, so steep that it can only be 
ascended by flights of stairs ; so broad that its top 
spreads out into fields and valleys and groves, as it 
were, a second story of country^ hundreds of feet up 
in the air. At its narrowest point it has been tunnelled, 
and the tunnel is four hundred and fifteen feet long. 
It was built by an Archbishop Sigismond, a hundred 
years ago, and will keep him in memory so long as the 
world stands. A clumsy stone head of him stands 
over the entrance to the tunnel, and looks down into 
the road, with the superfluous boast, '^ Te Saxa co- 
quunten " » r ^ 



1 00 THE RETURNED VETERANS' FEST 

They tell you that from bottom to top of the Monchs- 
berg it is only two hundred and eighty steps. '' 0," 
you say gayly, " that is nothing," and spring up. 
If they had mentioned also that the staircase is for 
the most part steep as a ladder, and intersected by 
long stretches of path almost as hard to climb as the 
ladder, one could better reckon the cost of going up. 
Also, both staircase and path are very narrow, and 
when, as yesterday, throngs of people are coming 
down, it adds sensibly to the fatigue of going up to be 
obhged to swing on a pivot once in two minutes, to 
let big G-erman women, big G-erman soldiers with 
pipes, children by dozens, and men with beer casks go 
by. We swung off in this way and let so many hun- 
dreds pass us, that we almost thought the Festival must 
be coming to an end. But how we laughed at oar 
want of comprehension of what a G-erman out-door 
Fest could be, when we first caught sight of the broad, 
crowded plateau, and realized that the hundreds we 
had met were only two or three people who had to go 
home early. I do not know how many acres full of 
men and women there were. I only know that the 
space they filled was so large that at the farthest end 
of it the gay colors of the banners could scarcely be 
distinguished, and two full bands and an orator could 
be going on at once and not jangle with each other ; 
and yet from the higher ground the whole could be 
seen, one great sea of good-fellowship. On the outer 
edges of the crowd, under trees, were rows of booths; 
beer, brown-bread, and snaky sausages for the mass ; 
white bread, cakes, and candies for the few ; the whole 
hillside was settee ; greener-cushioned never mortals 
had ; but it was too much stuffed with stone, and in 
spite of the picturesqueness and jollity of the scene, 
bones would ache, especially if they were withheld by 
superfluous scruples from doing among Germans exactly 
as Germans did, and lying down at full length every 
now and then to rest. 



IN SALZBURG, loi 

The family groups sitting here were pleasant to see ; 
father, mother, six or eight children, all drinking beer, 
even the baby that could not speak plain, all nibbling 
at the ends of sticks of sausage, all good-natured but 
not talkative. 

They do more thinking than their share, this G-er- 
man nation; the world is the better for it, no doubt, 
but if they could only borrow a laugh from Italy, it 
would do them good. 

Next to us on the hillside sat a young German, 
evidently a mechanic of some sort, who had brought 
his sister and sweetheart to the Test. They had one 
huge glass mug of beer between them, and I observed 
that the man drank first and oftenest ; for the rest, 
their feast was of white bread and sausage ; and they 
munched and looked at each other, and looked at each 
other and munched, and not a dozen times did they 
open their mouths to speak during the two hours and 
a half that we sat by their side, yet they looked the 
picture of content. 

The Veterans, though there were six thousand of 
them on the ground, were lost in the crowd. Now 
and then half a dozen of them would be seen sitting 
and smoking together, but they formed no distinguish- 
able feature of, the occasion which bore their name. 
Just as we were unwillingly beginning to think of tlie 
stairs which lay between us and our carriage, a sudden 
stir among the people, and much taking off of hats, 
announced the arrival of dignitaries. 

There they were, at our very elbow, and no instinct 
had told us, — the Archduke, and several ladies and 
officers of the court. . By some magic chairs appeared, 
and in a few minutes the group were seated in the 
centre of a hollow square of staring faces. I never 
supposed that divinity hedging a king could be so un- 
dignified and droll as was the fat pompous little man 
who went up and down before and behind, and pushed 
the people back if they crowded up too close. Even 



102 THE RETURNED VETERANS' FEST, 

at risk of getting a wave from his official hand, we 
walked several times quite close to the backs of the 
sublime people, and took our fill of looking at court 
clothes. White muslin over blue silk, Valenciennes 
lace, and fine white straw hats with blue crape stream- 
ers for the women, very dainty and pretty, but just 
such as any woman may buy in New York at Yirefolet's 
or Baillard's ; but for the officers — ah, are there else- 
where in the world such colors as the cherry scarlet gray 
blue, pomegranate red, and deep sea green which these 
Austrian officers wear ? And then the fit of them ! 
It is profane to suppose they are cut and made. It is 
the coats that come first ; and the men are melted over 
night and poured in in the morning. 

The Archduke has light blue eyes, and a weak cruel 
face ; I was glad he was only the Emperor's brother ; 
I could fancy his doing deadly harm with power. The 
women were beautiful, the first beautiful women I 
have seen in G-ermany. Full into the face of the young- 
est and most beautiful of them, the handsomest of the 
officers puffed clouds on clouds of tobacco-smoke as 
he stood talking with her. This universal smoking in 
G-ermany is enough to cure one of all fancy for the 
practice ; cars, dining-rooms, all made insufferable by 
it; and women sitting by and breathing it all in, hour 
after hour, as if it were the wholesomest, most delicious 
air. 

We lingered till sunset ; then, though nobody ap-^ 
peared to be going away, we found the stairways just 
as crowded as before with ups and downs ; until mid- 
night, they told us the Test would last. 

This morning at six o'clock, music again, and more 
Veterans, but such different-looking Veterans from 
those of yesterday! Slowly they dragged along to the 
railway-station to take the early train ; the green leaves 
in their hats drooping and wilted, and their whole 
atmosphere bearing that unmistakable expression, com- 
mon, the whole world over, to " next morning." 



^ MORNING IN THE ETRUSCAN MUSEUM 
IN THE VATICAN. 

CRETE had a Labyrinth, and Rome has a Vatican. 
I wish I knew how many times the Labyrinth 
could be contained in the Vatican, and if it would not 
seem a place for plain sailing in comparison. When 
you read in Murray that the Vatican has four thousand 
rooms, it conveys no precise idea to your mind ; when 
you look at the huge, irregular pile itself, which ap- 
pears to have no particular beginning and never to 
leave off, and to make St. Peter's look trig and tidy be- 
side it, even then you do not comprehend ; when you 
are told that for many years the little chapel of San 
Lorenzo, with its solemn frescos by Era Angehco, was 
lost in this labyrinth, — utterly lost out of the memory 
of man, and was accidentally discovered by a Grerman 
artist, who had to climb in through a window, — even 
then you are not fully alive to it. Not until you have 
entered, and toiled and wandered for hours, trying to 
find some gallery or chapel to which you have been a 
dozen times, and which you proudly assured your con- 
fiding friend you could " go straight to," do you begin 
to realize what the Vatican is hke. If you could only 
" bark " your way, as you do in other wildernesses, 
there would be some hope ; but, if you ever do turn 
the same corner twice, you never know it, and the 
more you try to remember just how you went the last 
time, the less likely you will be to go that way. There 
are in the guide-books plans of the Vatican. They are 
of use, if carefully studied at home ; but once take them 
out on the ground, after you are already a little con- 



I04 



THE ETRUSCAN MUSEUM. 



fused, and you are hopelessly lost. Your bewilder- 
ment is instantly heightened by a sense of conspicuous 
humiliation, which is unbearable. Twos and threes, and 
sixes, and sevens of all nations come immediately in 
sight, walking toward and past you, — heartless Levites, 
. who knov>7- the road. Never have I found the Samari- 
tan of the Vatican ; no, though I have sat begging by 
the way. But I have always comforted myself by be- 
lieving that the Levites also got lost before they had 
gone far ; in fact, I myself have sometimes come upon 
them, later, standing stock-still and helpless, while I, in 
my turn, passed by on the other side. 

It was on one of the rawest of the raw days for 
which winter in sunny Italy is not, but ought to be, 
famous, that we saw the Etruscan Museum. We had 
walked round and round it, and over it, and under it, 
till we had almost ceased to believe in it, before we 
found the door. Once in, we should have known, even 
without the inscription over the entrance, that we were 
in the right place. On three sides of the small vesti- 
bule lay life-size figures of terra-cotta ; a man, crowned 
with a wreath of laurel, and two women, wearing 
necklaces, bracelets, and rings. They were a good 
deal chipped and knocked, these old Etrurians, and one 
of the women must have been a sad fright in her day, 
if her portrait were a good one ; but, true or false, high 
or low, there they lay, three citizens of Etruria, in 
solid shapes of stone, as big as they were when alive, 
and more famous than they ever dreamed of being. 
On the walls were fastened several horses' heads, 
taken from the entrance to somebody's tomb. Among 
the Etrurians, it seems, the horse was an emblem of 
the passage of the soul to the other world ; from which 
it is fair to infer that break-neck riding and driving are 
not modern inventions. In the middle of the vestibule 
was a great scaldino, filled with red-hot coals ; and the 
two custodi of the museum stood over it, blue and 
shivering, trying to warm their hands. Of all flimsy 



THE ETRUSCAN MUSEUM. 105 

pretences, the scaldino is the flimsiest and most pre- 
tentious. Why a huge kettle of coals, which glow red 
to the eye, and breathe hot and choking to the lungs, 
cannot keep you warm five minutes, is unexplainable ; 
but it does not. You rub your hands over them with 
a vigor which would warm you anywhere, and you 
might as well spare yourself the unwholesome stifle 
of the scorched air. 

When the custodi saw us take from under our cloaks 
a big green bound book, and walk ofl' independently 
into the first chamber on the right, they roused a little 
from their torpidity, and followed us to see what man- 
ner of people those might be who needed none of their 
help. Ah ! we were luckier people than they knew, 
for the book was " Dennis's Cities and Cemeteries of 
Etruria." Dennis's description of this museum is so 
accurate as to seem marvehous when we are told that 
it was written entirely from memory, — the Pontifical 
Grovernment, for some reasons best known to itself, 
not allowing any memoranda to be made in the 
rooms. 

The first chamber is filled with cinerary urns, or ash- 
chests. Undertaking must have been a more cheerful 
trade in those days than in these, and have offered 
openings for fine artistic talent ; in fact, these carved 
ash-chests looked so little like things belonging to burial, 
that it was hard to believe that they had not been 
meant originally for some other purpose. There was 
an endless variety of them, — square chests, oblong 
chests, round chests, oval chests, big chests, little chests, 
high and low and wide and narrow chests, — carved 
figures on all the lids and on the sides, some of them 
mythological signs, some of them allegorical represen- 
tations of the last journey of the inhabitants of the 
chest, in which the soul, looking in nowise unlike the 
body, is seen, wrapped in a toga, sitting upright astride 
a horse, which is led by a frisky httle demon. On 
shelves above the chests were heads of the same terra- 
5* 



io6 THE ETRUSCAN MUSEUM. 

cotta, portraits of the dead. There had been handles 
to the hds. Some of the heads of httle children were 
very sweet and Ufehke ; one, especially, looked so like 
a baby I know, that I started, and wondered in my heart 
if really just such another darling had laughed and 
played on earth two thousand years ago. At the end 
of the chamber was a large chest, in which had been 
buried the ashes of a husband and wife, who were 
perhaps fortunate enough to be '^ not divided " in 
their death, as their full-length figures are carved on 
the lid, lying fondly clasped in each other's arms. 

In the centre of the next room stood a huge sar- 
cophagus, of great interest as an antiquity, carved and 
carved and carved again with scenes from the stories 
of Clytemnestra, and Orestes, and the Theban Brothers, 
and from thence all the way back to the brothers Cain 
and Abel, one would think. There are minds which 
take a species of anatomical, statistical, archgeological 
interest in this sort of thing ; and will tell you, down 
to the last joint of Agamemnon's little finger, what it 
all means. But I confess I listen to their accounts with 
a fatiguing mixture of reverence and incredulity. On 
shelves in the corner of this room were some little 
stone huts, not more than ten inches high, which in- 
terested me far more than the great historical sar- 
cophagus. They were two ash-chests of the very oldest 
forms, made to imitate the shape of the low, round 
huts of skins, stretched over cross-poles, in which the 
Latins lived. They made you think of beehives. Ashes 
and bits of burnt bone were in them still. They were 
found, with many other rare things, in a big jar, hid 
away in one of the Alban Hills ; and the people whose 
dust they held died before Eome was a city. 

After one more room of terra- cottas, urns, statues, 
and bass-reliefs, you come to the rooms of vases. There 
are four of these rooms, and the vases are arranged on 
pedestals and shelves. The first thing you do is to re- 
solve that you will learn the names of the different 



THE ETRUSCAN MUSEUM. 107 

shapes. In a few minutes you persuade yourself that 
you know, and will remember, which is an amphora, 
a pelice, a calpis, and a patera. For that one day you 
will ; but in a week all that you will know will be that 
the amphora, and the calpis, and the pelice are all beau- 
tiful kinds of jars, and that the paterae and pelices are 
the shapes which lucky people who have them use for 
card-receivers. 

The rarest and most beautiful vases are on single 
pedestals, in the centre of the rooms. Mythological 
and historical scenes are painted on all of them. One 
of these has a picture of Ajax and Achilles playing at 
the game of " Morra," which is played all over Italy 
to-day. As I write, some handsome Albanese men are 
playing it under my window, and shouting out the 
numbers so loudly that I cannot, do what I will, help 
keeping run of their game. It looks stupid enough to 
one not born to it. Two men thrust out their right 
hands at each other, shutting up some fingers and 
opening others. Each man calls out on the instant 
what he thinks the whole number of extended fingers. 
If both are right or both are wrong, nothing is counted; 
but if one only is right, it counts one for him. Nobody 
would suppose that a mistake could ever be made in 
calling the number; but it is played with lightning- 
quickness, and there could not be so much excitement 
in it if blunders were not frequent. On this vase Ajax 
calls out '^ Four! " and Achilles " Three! " (the words, 
printed in Oreek letters, coming out of their mouths,) 
and both the heroes look as intent as if they were 
plarming a battle. 

Some of the scenes are very comic, and belong to all 
time. For instance, a short-legged fat man, looking up 
hopelessly at his lady-love, sitting in a high window, 
and a kind friend appearing in the distance, bringing a 
ladder to his assistance. This was none the funnitr 
when it was meant to show Jupiter serenading Alc- 
mena, and Mercury running to help him up, than it 



xo8 THE ETRUSCAN MUSEUM, 

^ould be as a passage from the life of our Mr. Fal- 
stafF. On another vase is a picture of a tall boy, with 
a hoop in one hand and a cock in the other. His 
whole expression shows that he has stolen the cock, 
and is trying to make oflf slyly with it, — which is" a 
hard thing to manage, as he has no clothes on. Strid- 
ing along behind him comes a man, either the owner 
of the cock or the boy's teacher, with a long switch in 
his hand, from which there is plainly no escape for the 
young thief. 

In the last vase-room are many curious goblets, — 
some with great eyes painted on them ; some with 
'' Hail, drink ! " which seems a good and friendly motto 
to set on the rim of glasses in a hospitable house. But 
now we have reached the ninth room, fullest of won- 
ders. To begin with, what is this ? A small iron bed- 
stead ? Exactly that. And I dare say generations of 
gingle Etrurians slept on it. Finally, it came to be the 
bier-bedstead for the last long sleep of somebody ; and 
hi his tomb at Cervetri it was found. Monsignore 
Eegolini and Greneral G-alassi discovered this tomb ; and 
it has ever since been known by their names. Anti- 
quaries believe it to be three thousand years old ; so it 
is possible to please one's self with the fancy that the 
great warrior or priest who was buried in it died of 
having eaten too much peacock at the first supper 
given to ^neas after his arrival in Italy. He must 
have been the best-dressed man at supper, if he wore 
the magnificent gold ornaments in which he was buried. 
Here they are, outshining all the other gold and silver 
array in the large glass case in the centre of the room, 
— a broad gold breastplate, embossed with twelve 
bands of figures, sphinxes, goats, panthers, deer, and 
winged demons ; another ornament for the head, made 
of two large oval plates, fastened together by a broad 
band, embossed in the same way, with smaller plates 
and fringes to hang down behind, bracelets several 
inches broad, ear-rings several inches long, all matching 



THE ETRUSCAN MUSEUM, 109 

the breastplate. No worker in gold to-day can equal 
the shaping and chasing of these ornaments. In an inner 
room of this same tomb were found also other brace- 
lets, armlets, wreaths, chains, ear-rings, and brooches, 
— all of the same exquisite workmanship ; and it is 
supposed that some woman of high rank, possibly a 
priestess, was buried there. One wonders whether it 
were honesty or superstition which kept tombs so safe 
in Etruria, and involuntarily fancies the fate of such 
treasures if buried in public cemeteries to-day. 

It is hard to leave this room ; but at the end of a 
day we should not have seen all. On the walls hang 
rusty metal mirrors, fans, candelabras, shields dented 
in many fights, visors, axes, javelins, cuirasses, spears, 
and all shapes and sizes of armor. On shelves are in- 
numerable and inexplicable tools and instruments, — 
forks, and pins, and ladles, and strainers, and pails, and 
jugs; in cases by the windows are pounds and pounds 
of odds and ends, — coins, and weights, and clasps, and 
little metal bulls, and fishes, and cats, and daggers, and 
chains, and bits of bone, looking for all the world as 
if they had been emptied out of some boy-giant's 
pocket. Here is a curious stone bottle, — an ink-bot- 
tle, they say, — on which some idle scholar scratched 
off a bit of his primer, '^ Ba, Be, Bi, Bo, Bu," in old 
Pelasgic letters. Groing to school must have been as 
stupid then as now. Here is a pair of clogs ; yes, 
real Etruscan clogs, bronze, filled in with light wood. 
No. 4-| at least, and much worn by some enterprising 
woman who went out in all weathers in Yeii. ^ Here is 
the brazier by which she dried her feet when she came 
home, and the shovel and tongs and poker lying across 
the top, just as she kept them. The tongs are on 
wheels and end in snakes' heads, the shovel-handle is 
a swan's neck, and the poker or rake finishes off with 
a human hand. 

Near these is an oval silver casket, most exquisitely 
carved, found in a tomb at Vulci. The handle is made 



no THE ETRUSCAN MUSEUM, 

of two swans, one bearing a boy and the other a girl, 
holding on by their arms round the swans' necks. In 
this were found a little hand-mirror, two broken bone 
combs (0 unneat woman of Yulci), two hair-pins, an 
ear-pick, and two small pots of rouge. 

Three things more, and we have finished our glance 
at this room, — a Eoman war-chariot, found on the 
Appian Way, and looking triumphant still ; a great arm 
and dolphin's tail, of bronze, cast up by the sea at 
Civita Yecchia. 

The next room is hung with paintings, exact copies 
of the painted walls of the tombs of Tarquinii and 
Yeii ; and the next and last is the '' Chamber of the 
Tomb," a long, narrow, low, dark room, fitted up in 
imitation of the common Etruscan tombs, — stone 
couches on three sides, bronze and pottery hanging on 
the walls and standing about, — an exact reproduction, 
they say, of a real tomb. But it gives you no thrill, 
probably makes you smile, and remember things you 
have seen in panoramas. The real presences have been 
in the other rooms. 

We went out through the Grallery of Inscriptions, 
which is one of the solemn places. On the left hand 
the tombstones of the early Christians, on the right 
those of their enemies. It is touching to read these 
records of the first triumphs of Christianity's first faith 
over the grave. " A sweet soul, who sleeps in peace," 
is an inscription constantly recurring. Among the Pa- 
gan inscriptions are no such comforting words ; only 
grief and gloom. 

In the court-yard the Pope's gay guards were flaunt- 
ing up and down like enchanted tiger-lilies, making ready 
for his Holiness to take such modest airing in a close 
red coach as befits the representative of Jesus Christ ; 
the beggars buzzed up round our ears ; the scorching 
sirocco blew in our faces ; and in a few moments we 
had bridged the gap of twenty centuries, and taken up 
again our own little thread of to-day. 



ALBANO DAYS. 

THERE are but seven in a week. That is their only 
fault. How clever those gentlemanly fellows, 
Pompey and Domitian, were, to put their villas on this 
hill ; and as for the cruelties said to have been commit- 
ted in Domitian's amphitheatre, a few rods from our 
hotel, we have decided that there is some mistake about 
that. In Rome one can believe in all tales of old tor- 
tures — and new ones too, for that matter. Even when 
the larks sing loudest in the Coliseum the stones cry out 
louder ; the air reeks with sirocco vapors, and seems 
not yet purged from the odor of blood. Rut in the 
pure, sun-flooded air of this hill, which must always 
have been full of marvellous delights, it is impossible to 
believe that bad men ever did bad deeds. Whatever 
they might have been in Rome, they were virtuous as 
soon as they got here. I cannot fancy Domitian's ever 
doing anything worse than having a few larks killed for 
supper ; and I am sure he spent most of his afternoons 
lying on purple thyme on the shores of the Alban 
Lake (as we lay yesterday), perhaps slyly reading the 
good sayings of the poor Epictetus whom he had ban- 
ished. We read yesterday what Epictetus said '•' con- 
cerning those who seek preferment in Rome " ; and, as 
we looked over at the hot, smoky domes and spires, it 
seemed hard to believe that any one going thither, even 
if he were '' met by a billet from Caesar,'' could chooL^e 
to stay. 

Albano is 1,250 feet above the sea, says Murray. That 
may be true, say we ; but we know it is much more 
than that above Rome. Have we not been looking 



112 ALBANO DAYS. 

longingly at it for months, set high on the side of the 
Alban Hills? From every height in Rome to which 
we wearily climbed we saw it, triumphant with banners 
of clouds, and crowned with green of forests, saying as 
plainly as tower could say, " Come up here, and I will 
do you good." When the watchmen in the old Sara- 
cen towers saw the pirate-ships coming over the Medi- 
terranean, they sounded the alarm, and all the people 
in the plains fled into the mountains for safety. To-day 
the towers are in ruins, and no corsairs sail from Africa 
across the sea ; but the sirocco, a more deadly foe, comes 
in their stead, hotter and hotter with each day of May, 
and wise souls escape to high places. 

Of all those within easy reach of Rome, Albano is 
best. It is only an hour off by the cars. And even at 
the railroad station you are met by beauty and good^ 
cheer — a garden full of roses, and white thorne, and 
wall-flowers, and ranunculus; and a station-master 
who, if he treats you as well as he treated us, will 
give you a big bunch of all, and look hurt and angry 
when you offer to pay him. From this garden to the 
village of Albano, two miles and a half, over a good 
road, up, up, up ! the air grows purer minute by min- 
ute; the Campagna behind sinks and stretches and 
fades, and becomes only another sea, purpler and more 
restless-looking than the broad band of the Mediterra- 
nean into which it melts. On each side are vineyards, 
looking now like miniature military encampments, with 
play-guns of cane stacked by fives and threes, and little 
soldiers in green going in and out and playing leap-frog 
among them, so fantastic are the baby- vines in their first 
creeping. Olives, gray and solemn, sharing none of the 
life and joy, most pathetic of trees. The first man who 
saw an olive-tree must have known that there had been 
G-ethsemane. Never else could such pathos have been 
put into mere color ; they could never have been so 
gray before that night. Still up and up ! It is a long 
two and a half miles. The bells tinkle slowly at the 



ALBANO DAYS, 113 

horse's head. The driver's neck bends suspiciously to 
one side ; he is half asleep. You would not be sorry 
if the horse and he dozed off together, and you stood 
still for an hour to look. On the right hand is a 
valley garden, an old lake-bed, set full of vines and fig- 
trees and fruit-trees in full flov^er, and v^heat, and all 
the numberless and exquisite-leaved '"greens" which 
Italy boils, eats, and manages to grow fat on. We find 
them beautiful everywhere but on the dinner-table. 
High on the crater-like side of this garden is the tower 
of Ariccia, looking like a gray bird which had just lit 
on its way up to Monte Cavo. Between Ariccia and 
Albano is a sharp ravine ; and the sensible Pius IX., 
some twenty years ago, built a fine stone viaduct across 
it, toward the cost of which we pay half a franc each 
time we drive over. But only blind men could grudge 
the money. From every point it is a most beautiful 
feature in the landscape, with its three tiers of arches ; 
and from its top you look down two hundred feet into 
the valley garden on one side, and two hundred feet in- 
to the tops of a forest of trees on the other. You follow 
the valley garden till it loses itself in the Campagna ; 
the Campagna, till it loses itself in the Mediterranean, 
which glistens in the sun twelve miles off; and you 
hear coming up from the forest the voices of thrushes 
and nightingales and cuckoos and larks, till you believe 
that there must be a bird-fancier's shop in one of the 
old gray houses joining the bridge. To stand on this 
bridge for an hour is to see Italian country-life in drama. 
The donkeys, the men, and the women of Albano and 
Ariccia and Grensano act their little parts, and are gone. 
We stayed late at this play last night. The wardrobes 
were poor, but the acting was nature itself; such pan- 
tomime, such chorus ! Priests in black, looking always 
like a sort of ecclesiastical crow, such silly solemnity in 
their faces, so much slow flap to their petticoats and 
the brims of their hats ; barefooted monks, rolled up in 
cloaks of faded brown — they also have their similitude, 



114 



ALBANO jDAVS. 



and look as the olive-trees might if they gathered their 
rusty skirts around them and hobbled out for a walk ; 
workmen, going home from the fields, with odd hoes 
and pickaxes over their shoulders; women, with the 
same hoes and pickaxes, going home from the same 
work in the same fields, and carrying also, firm-set on 
their heads, bundles, loads of wood, httle wine-barrels 
or water-jars, or anything else which it can happen to 
an Albanese woman to need to carry. JSTo one gives 
herself any more trouble about her barrel, or jar, or load 
of wood, than if it were a second head, which she had 
worn all her life. • They talked and laughed as if it 
were morning instead of night. They were not tired. 
Watch them at what they call work, and you will see 
why. As the sun sank lower the crowd of laborers 
thinned ; the farmers, one degree better off, came rid- 
ing on donkeys. Two men and a boy on one donkey ; 
four large bundles of wood and one woman on one 
donkey ; four large casks of wine, a bundle of hay, two 
chairs, some iron utensils, and two small children on 
one donkey. the comic tragedy of donkey ! the 
hopeless arch of their eyebrows, the abjectness of their 
tails, and the vicious twist of their ankles ! Nobody 
can watch them long without becoming wretched. 
Israelites, coolies, and negroes, — all they have died of 
misfortunes ; but the donkey is the Wandering Jew of 
misery among animals, and Italy, I think, must be his 
Ghetto. 

Before we reached the hotel we had come upon an- 
other drama, in the street, — a lottery drawing ; prize, 
two hens. If it had been two thousand scudi, there could 
not have been much more excitement. Fifty chances 
had been sold. The street held its breath, while a store- 
keeper dropped the counters one by one into a box, 
held by a rosy boy, mischievous enough, but too young 
to cheat. Then the boy put in his little brown fingers, 
and drew out one : " Thirty ! " Then the street broke 
out into chatter for an instant, guessing and betting 



ALBANO DAYS, 



115 



what would come next; then held its breath stiller 
than ever. "Thirty-one! " "Thirty-one! " No "Thirty- 
one •' answered. , " Thirty-one " was sick at home, or 
had married a wife, and could not come ; and the street 
grudged him his two hens all the more that he was not 
on hand to carry them off. The hens screamed and 
scuffled ; the storekeeper crammed them back into a 
coop on his window ; and the street went back to its 
work, i. e. to sitting about, smoking, and knitting, and 
selling saddles and fish and shoes and salad and hand- 
kerchiefs and donkeys and calico and wine all along 
its doorsteps, never by any chance being under roof, so 
long as there is daylight. 

We took our sunsetting at the Yilla Doria. It is a 
princely thing of the rich Romans to throw their beau- 
tiful villas open to the public. Could it be safely done 
in America ? I fear our people are not gentle enough, 
and have too much money to spend on cake and pea- 
nuts. Here no harm comes of it. In the Yilla Doria 
are ilex-trees which are a kingdom in themselves. It 
would not seem unnatural to make obeisance to them. 
They stand in groups, making long vistas, high arches, 
locking and interlocking their branches, their trunks 
looking as old as the masses of ruins among them ; and 
the ruins belonged to Pompey's walls. At sunset the 
sun slants under and through these ilexes ; the purple 
and wine-colored bands of the Campagna and sky be- 
yond seem to narrow closer and closer round the hill, 
and flocks of birds wheel and sing. In the Yilla Bar- 
berini, higher up, is a great field of stone-pines, stately 
as a council of gods. No wonder that Theodore Par- 
ker, when he saw a stone-pine, asked that one be set 
on his grave. No tree grows which has such bearing 
of a solemn purpose. Such morning and evening as 
this make a day in Albano. Words give but glimpse 
and no color. For other days there are other villas, 
and fields, and ruins, tombs of Pompey and of Aruns, 
Lake Nemy and its village, Gensano, and Marino, and 



Ti6 ALBANO DAYS. 

Eocca di Papa, all within easy reach and always in 
sight. There are four lovely winding avenues of trees, 
called G-allerie, where you drive for miles under arches 
of gray ilex as grand as stone, and where the oldest 
trees are propped by pillars to save their strength and 
keep them alive. There is Monte Cavo, the highest of 
the Alban Hills, one thousand feet above Albano, where 
there used to be a temple, and Julius Caesar went up to 
be crowned one day. To think that an English cardi- 
nal dared to pull down the ruined temple, and build a 
convent and church in its stead ! 

Some of the roads are very smooth and good, others 
are rough and narrow. For these you must take don- 
keys, and go perhaps two miles an hour ; but, going so 
slowly, you will have great reward in learning the faces 
of the wayside flowers and getting into fellowship with 
the lizards. Fifty different kinds of flowers I counted 
in one afternoon, all growing wild by the road ; and the 
other day, on the road to Marino, I made acquaintance 
with two lizards, who were finer than Solomon in all 
his glory, and had a villa with a better view than the 
Barberini. 



A SUNDAY MORNING IN VENICE. 



"S 



COTCH PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH ! " There 



ground. We rubbed our eyes and sprang up in our 
gondola. Yes, we were in a gondola, and we were on 
the Grand Canal in Venice. But there were the 
words, and no mistake ; white on blue, so plain that 
he who rowed might read. '^ Scotch Presbyterian 
Church ! " We had seen, unmoved, the palaces of 
Doges, Titians, Marco Polos, Lord Byrons, and Dic- 
tator Ruskins ; we had looked the Lion of St. Marks 
in the eye, and the statue of St. Theodore out of coun- 
tenance ; but for this we were not prepared. A Pres- 
byterian meeting-house on the G-rand Canal ! The 
resolute little sign held our eyes with a fascination 
amounting almost to an uncanny spell ; the distant 
hand-organ seemed droning off into a sleepy Dundee ; 
our good Luigi's features seemed changing into some- 
thing more stern than their wont ; the measured sweep 
of his oar took on a solemn significance ; and when 
the legless beggar who haunts the Grand Canal rowed 
up by our side, we should not have been surprised if, 
instead of his usual whine of " qualche cosa," he had 
struck up " Life is the time to serve the Lord." 
" Scotch Presbyterian Church ! " The letters defied 
perspective, and looked bigger and bigger as we glided 
away. 

'* Luigi, is there really a church there ? " 

'' yes, yes, Signora ; every Sunday." 

'' Very well. Next Sunday we will go to it." 

Luigi looked glad. The Sunday before, when we 



Ii8 A SUNDAY MORNING IN VENICE. 

went out to take our evening row, he asked with timid 
interest if we had been to mass in the morning. On 
hearing that we had not, his face clouded ; and I think 
that after that his gentle soul had been troubled by 
misgivings as to our future. But now he was reassured. 
If we could not be good Catholics, it was something 
that we had a worship of our own. Perhaps, after all, 
we should not be left forever in purgatory. There was 
real hberality in the approbation, softened perhaps by 
pity, with which he smiled on us, as we stepped out of 
our gondola at the picturesque low stone door, over 
which was the sign " Scotch Presbyterian Church." 

We were too early by an hour. Even Scotch Pres- 
byterianism had so far accommodated itself to the air 
of Venice as to postpone the hour of morning service 
till half past eleven. The door was shut. What should 
we do ? By way of making the antithesis of things 
sharper yet, we might hear a Boman Catholic mass 
first. 

"Luigi, we will go to St. Mark's." Luigi looked 
gladder still. Surely his " forestiere " were in the 
right path to-day. His oar dipped fast, and in a few 
minutes we had slipped into the little sombre canal 
which creeps under the Bridge of Sighs, and were 
walking off, in the sunshine of Luigi's patronizing 
smile, through the court-yard of the Doge's Palace, into 
the great solemn shadows of St. Mark's. It was 
crowded, — the first time I had seen it so ; but even 
the stir and hum of so many living men and women 
did not seem to give it a breath of the atmosphere of 
to-day. Each man seemed, as soon as he entered and 
knelt down, to be transformed, as by a magician's 
touch, into an enchanted figure which had been pray- 
ing there for centuries. The priests moved to and fro ; 
the incense films rose, and floated, and faded ; invisible 
bells tinkled sharply. It was only a common, low mass, 
but it seemed like the worship of some old spell-bound 
race doomed to kneel, and pray, and swing censers till 



A SUNDAY MORNING IN VENICE. 119 

some predestined deliverer should come, possibly the 
next hour, possibly not for a thousand years, to set 
them free. Perhaps it is strange that the worship of 
the Eoman Catholic Church should ever seem like 
anything less than this. Surely her millions are spell- 
bound, waiting the deliverer who will one day come. 
Involuntarily I looked up at the giant apostles and 
saints frescoed in blue and crimson and gold high over- 
head ; and I half thought that they stirred, as if the 
hour was near. No ; it was only a misty sunbeam 
stealing around pillar after pillar, and lighting up their 
stone faces with quivering colors of life. After the 
mass was over, a fair, gentle-faced priest pattered out 
from some dark recess behind the high altar, and, 
standing in front of the railing, read bans of matrimony 
for many men and women. 

They were really alive then, and they married and 
were given in marriage, these weird Venetians who 
made up the spectacle at which I had been looking. I 
saw also that a young girl nudged her neighbor and 
smiled scornfully as one name was read. Ah, they 
had also envies and scandals ! From these, too, must 
come a deliverer. The incense will not help them, nor 
the naming of saints, nor the keeping of days ; only 
the Lord himself from heaven. As I walked slowly 
out among the kneeling figures, I thought of Paul in 
the Athenian temples, and what glorious thrills must 
have warmed his blood when he called out his watch- 
word of Christ in the midst of their altars. 

When we again reached the room of the " Scotch 
Presbyterian Church" the minister was reading the 
first hymn. The room was small, with three chintz- 
curtained windows opening into a green and sunny 
garden. I much suspect the desk of having been only 
a temporary arrangement of chairs and tables, with 
a dark tapestry flung over them. Every seat was 
filled ; there were, perhaps, forty men and women, 
earnest-looking, plain people, English and Americans. 



120 A SUNDAY MORNING IN VENICE. 

We sat down just outside, in a small anteroom, of 
which one door opened wide into the sunny garden 
and the other on the Grrand Canal. In the garden, on 
my right, birds sang riotously ; on the canal I could 
see gondoks and great black barges constantly going 
up and down. Before me stood the young minister, 
reading, with his odd Scotch accent, that good verse of 
the Bible, which says that we must bear one another's 
burdens. As he read it, it sounded " Bayre ye one 
anoother's buddens " ; but the doctrine was none the 
worse for the brogue. Just as I had fairly delivered 
myself up to the enjoyment of the whole scene, I was 
touched on the shoulder, and an elderly man, having 
somewhat the bearing of a Western congressman, 
said : '^ Ma'am, are these the American services ? " 

There was an emphasis on the word '^ American " 
which suggested that he had the Fourth of July — 
stars, stripes, fireworks, eagle, and all — in his pock- 
ets. I strangled a wicked impulse to reply, even under 
the minister's very face, that I did not know what 
" American services " were, and answered : " I only 
know the sign above the door is Scotch Presbyterian 
Church." 

In a loud, resentful whisper he rejoined : " I was in- 
formed that the American services were held at the 
house of the American Consul." All this time his 
family stood waiting in the rear — mother, two young 
misses, a boy fifteen, and a dear, sturdy little baby-boy, 
possibly three years old. I replied again, as gravely as 
I could : '' There is no American Consul in Venice at 
present. The English Church service is held in the 
house of the English clergyman." He turned away 
and strode out, the family procession following. No 
worshipping under foreign flags would this patriotic 
family do. The American service or none! The 
earnest young minister went on with his Bible-reading, 
and I had almost forgotten the interruption, when lo ! 
a stir at the door, and there they were again, — the 



A SUNDAY MORNING IN VENICE, 121 

discomfited patriots returning crestfallen, after I know 
not how much research and consultation, — ready at 
last to make the best of Scotch " services," since 
American could not be found. 

The mother had, I thought, a sweet and gentle face; 
and, as she took the baby in her lap, I prepared myself 
for an hour of delight in watching them. Alas, what 
a mistaken hope ! The baby was restless. Who would 
not be, for that matter, with the tempting garden and 
singing-birds on one hand, and the fairy spectacle of 
the boats and the water on the other ? Moreover, the 
mercury stood at eighty degrees, or higher : only by 
help of much fanning did the grown-up people keep 
still. What was a baby to do ? Of course he tried to 
slip down and run out ; and of course, before long, he 
began to fret and whimper. At last she rose, took him 
by the hand, and walked into the garden. My heart 
gave a bound of joy. '^ 0," thought I, " kind, sensi- 
ble mother ! She will sit in the garden with him, and 
let him play." 

•'0 mamma! me be good, me be good!" came 
down the garden-alley in those unmistakable tones of 
terror which are never heard from the lips of any 
children except those whose nerves have had the 
shock and the pain of blows. All the sunlight seemed in 
that instant to die out of the fair green place. But I 
said to myself, " Poor darling. He will escape one 
whipping at least. She will never dare to whip him 
here." Mistaken again. In less than a minute there 
came from the distance that sharp, quick scream which 
means but one thing ; once, twice, three times, — then 
all was still. In a few minutes more they returned ; 
the poor baby subdued into a sort of hysterical silence, 
worse to see than violent crying, his cheeks crimson, 
and his eyes full of tears. I buried my face in my 
hands, and tried to take comfort in remembering how 
many friendly diseases there are which carry little 
children to heaven. The words of the sermon 
6 



122 A SUNDAY MORNING IN VENICE, 

sounded to me like inarticulate murmur; now and 
then came the refrain, '' Bear ye one another's bur- 
dens." How I wished I could bear that baby's ! For 
perhaps one half-hour he sat perfectly still ; but, at the 
age of three, memory is short and animal life is strong. 
He had a splendid physique, full of nervous overflow ; 
it was simply a physical impossibility for him to sit 
still long. He began again to make struggles and im- 
patient sounds. Again she took him up, this time 
with impatience and irritation in her manner, and led 
him into the sunny garden. Louder and more pite- 
ous came the cry, " mamma ! me be good, me be 
good ! " and the poor, sturdy little legs held back with 
all their force as she dragged him down the walk. I 
could hear no more. I fled through the opposite door, 
and sprang into our gondola so quickly that Luigi came 
running up with alarm and inquiry on his rugged face. 
In my excitement and indignation I found even Italian 
language enough to tell him what had driven me from 
the church. " Ah, it was very terrible. No wonder 
the signora could not bear it. Now he (Luigi) had 
four children, one little girl only a year old ; and 
never, no, never, did he strike them. He always talked 
with them ; never a blow, — no ! " 

Ah, polite and courteous Luigi ! Six months' obser- 
vation of the ways of Italian fathers and mothers 
made it hard for me to believe that his children led 
lives of such exceptional peace. The Italians never 
entirely '' grow up " themselves ; and they are with 
their children much as children are with kittens — af- 
fectionate and cruel by turns. But it was at that mo- 
ment an unspeakable comfort to me to hear Luigi tell 
his sympathizing lie. 

When the services were ended, I watched with 
morbid eagerness to see the baby once more. As the 
gondola of the patriotic family rowed away, I saw the 
poor little fellow's flushed face lying, weary and list- 
less, on his father's shoulder. All day it haunted me. 



A SUNDAY MO RATING IN VENICE. 123 

I could not shake off the fear, so well do I know that 
type of parent, that he had, after he reached the hotel, 
a third whipping, — such a one as is called in fiendish 
satire "a good whipping." Poor baby! Three whip- 
pings and a Scotch Presbyterian service in one fore- 
noon ; and he is only three years old, and has at least 
eight or nine years more to live under the lash. Poor 
bai3y! 

Venice, Italy, Juno 1. 



THE CONVENT OF SAN LAZZARO IN 
VENICE. 

THE longer one stays in Venice the more of a 
magnet the Lido becomes, and the surer one is to 
row thitlier daily. Its low line looks one minute like 
a mirage, the next like firm and pleasant land; one 
day it is gone, and the next morning back in its place 
again; and all the while you know that, shifting and 
shadowy as it seems, it is really the one solid bit of 
genuine earth which Venice owns — her life-preserver, 
so to speak, without which she would not keep her 
head above water through a single storm. The Adri- 
atic pounds away at the outer edge of it, macadamizing 
the beach in pink and white with broken shells, but it 
gains no ground. The quieter sea on the inner side 
is at work just as industriously, engineering for the 
harbor defence, sifting and piling the sand which hidden 
currents bring, night and day, from the feet of the 
Alps. They come so overloaded that they spill by the 
way ; and, in consequence, there is no straight road to 
any island in all the Lagoons. Suddenly, without any 
warning, you find yourself running aground on sand- 
banks, and have to row many an extra mile to get 
round them ; and, what is more surprising still, at sun- 
set are to be seen men walking about in all directions, 
apparently on the water. There is no miracle in it, 
however. These Peters sink only half-way to their 
knees ; and are buoyed up by no greater faith than that 
they will on the morrow sell at a good price, to Vene- 
tian fishermen, the poor sidling crabs which they are 
scooping up by handfuls on the sand-banks. 



THE CONVENT OF SAN LAZZARO, 



125 



But when one sails Lido-ward, no marvels of men 
walking on water, no hindrance of unexpected mud 
countries to be coasted, no glories of color in the sky, 
— no, not even when a day is setting, — can long with- 
hold his eyes from the Convent of San Lazzaro. Love- 
liest of all lovely islands in the Lagoons, it seems, in 
some lights, to be floating, and rising, and sinking on 
the smooth water, like a great red lily, with gray bat- 
tlement calyx folding about it, and a fringe of green 
beneath. Then one stray petal flutters off in the wind ; 
that is the fiery flag of the Sublime Porte, with its 
pale waning crescent. The dwellers on San Lazzaro are 
subjects of the Sultan. Then a soft bell-note swings 
out from the slender bell-tower on the left ; it is the 
hour for vespers. The dwellers on San Lazzaro say 
prayers after the fashion of tlie Latins. 

But neither the Sultan's yoke nor the rule of the 
Latin Church casts any shadow of burden or weariness 
over the faces of the monks of San Lazzaro. Such 
peaceful contentedness I have never seen, except in a 
child's eyes, as beamed in the smile of the brother 
who welcomed us, and introduced us to the Egyptian 
mummy who (should one say who, or which, of a 
mummy ?) occupies the place of state in one of the 
three fine library-rooms which are shown to strangers. 
He took us a little by surprise, — the mummy. We had 
not looked for him in an Armenian convent. But, 
with the exception of his features, he was handsome ; 
and the bead coverlid in which he was tucked up, and 
the painted box he journeyed in, were very fine. One 
could not help wondering, in looking at him, what his 
next transition would be, and if he did not get out of 
his glass case at night and study Armenian by star- 
light. Nowhere could he do it better than in these 
libraries, whose windows look out over rose and fig 
trees to the sea, and whose shelves are loaded with the 
rarest Armenian manuscripts. 

Some of the illuminated copies of the Bible are very 



126 THE CONVENT OF SAN LAZZARO, 

rare and beautiful. One of the most beautiful of all, 
though not the oldest, was written and illuminated by 
one man, probably the work of his whole lifetime ; but 
his name is not even known. Another one, very old 
and rare, once belonged to an Armenian queen ; and 
the monk showed to us with great reverence a para- 
graph in it which was written by her own hand. They 
have their share of devotion to royalty, even these 
simple-hearted monks; for on the table in the first 
library-room, where the visitors are requested to write 
their names, we found a separate book for the names 
of kings and queens and nobilities. In it we saw the 
somewhat cramped signatures of poor Maximihan and 
Carlotta. Lord Byron's autograph occupied a still more 
distinguished place, being framed by itself and hung 
in the window. It was written both in Enghsh and in 
Armenian ; so he made that much progress during the 
months that he lived and studied at San Lazzaro. The 
table at which he wrote is shown, and the monks ap- 
pear to regard his having lived with them as an honor. 
This struck us as a singular inversion of the true order 
of things ; Lord Byron seeming to us the person hon- 
ored by the arrangement. 

We saw the refectory and the kitchen, both as spot- 
lessly neat as if they belonged to an establishment of 
Shakers. A huge black cat in the kitchen had become 
so thoroughly imbued with the monkish view of wo- 
men that he sputtered savagely at sight of our party. 
^' Poor Pussy," in the gentlest of feminine voices, pro- 
duced no effect on him, except to set his back still 
higher in the air. 

In the printing-room six lay-brothers were busily at 
work running off the sheets of a translation of ^schy- 
lus into Armenian. In the cool stone stables twenty- 
seven Swiss cows were eating their fresh clover, mowed 
that morning on the Lido. In the mouth of a great 
artesian well, under a thatched straw roof, were floating 
twelve pails of rich cream and milk, ready to be sold 



THE CONVENT OF SAN LAZZARO. 127 

that evening to the Hotel Danielli, in Venice. In the 
pleasant, airy school-room, eighteen Armenian boys 
were studying away, — and hating it, I suppose, like 
boys of any other nation. In chambers here and there, 
which we might not see, were learned fathers, studying, 
translating, writing, and planning, all for the instruction 
of the Armenian people. In one chamber, most sacred 
of all, of which our guide spoke in lowered tones, was 
an old lay-brother, one hundred and two years old, — 
not dying, but yet not quite living; too feeble to walk ; 
waiting with his eyes fixed on the Celestial Mountains, 
and listening for the feet of the messenger with the 
token. In the walled gardens were all manner of 
pleasant things growing, — figs and beans, pomegran- 
ates and artichokes, peas, wheat, and maize, and olean- 
ders, roses, lemons, and oranges. Under the school- 
room windows was the garden of the pupils, in which 
each boy has his own bed. Grood boys have flower- 
seeds or roots given them as rewards. One lucky 
fellow had twenty-one kinds of pansy in his garden. 

Eound all this peaceful, beautiful hfe stretched the 
stone-walls, — not like walls, but sheltering arms. 
Outside the soft water seemed also to be circling and 
sheltering ; and no sound, unless of a passing oar, in- 
terrupted the quiet. We longed to stay for the rest 
of our lives, and drink cream, and translate good books 
for the benefit of the Armenian nation; and only 
wished that we had been wicked men and written 
poetry, so that we could make a precedent of Lord 
Byron's having been taken to board there. When we 
said as much, or nearly as much, to the gentle, smiling 
brother who had guided us over the convent, he 
warmed up, in kindly response, and begged me to 
come again the next Sunday and attend the service in 
the chapel. 

This we did, and it was the crowning pleasure of our 
glimpses of San Lazzaro. In our first visit we had 
been mere strangers, to whom were civilly afforded the- 



128 THE CONVENT OF SAN LAZZARO. 

ordinary facilities for seeing the place. In our second 
we were invited guests, and now the gracious courtesy 
of Eastern hospitality surrounded us. While we were 
sitting in the library, and looking again at the words 
which the Armenian queen had written thousands of 
years ago, there entered noiselessly a venerable man, 
who also might have come, it seemed to me, from quite 
as far back as her day, and who brought in his hands 
such refreshments as, I make no doubt, she set before 
strangers in her court; rose-leaves steeped in syrup 
till the syrup had become rose and the rose was trans- 
parent as syrup, of this one teaspoonful for each guest ; 
the teaspoons resting on tiny glass plates, which took 
a soft, red tint from the pulpy rose-leaves. In the 
centre of the tray, a dish of sweets for which I have no 
name; small square cakes, which might have been 
honey arrested and made solid by some magic means, 
and almond meats set thick in the luscious juice. This 
was all, except glasses of cool-filtered rain-water, al- 
most as great a rarity as the magic honey-cakes and 
the rose-leaf syrup. ^'Oh! where were these delicious 
sweets made?" said we. "By Armenian ladies in 
Constantinople. They send them to us every year," 
replied the monk. "And you, what do you send to 
them in turn?" said I, — "figs and pomegranates 
from your garden?" "0 no; nothing but letters," 
laughed the monk, with a shrug of his shoulders which 
could not have been as worldly wis^e and cynical as it 
looked. 

The Armenian liturgy is one of the most solemn in 
the world. We had read carefully the English transla- 
tion of it, so that we were not wholly at loss in listen- 
ing to the sonorous ring of it in the Armenian tongue. 
The boys chanted with sharp inflections and unusual 
intervals, which gave to the whole a wild and not 
unmusical cadence. But it was impossible not to be 
diverted from the service by the faces of the brothers. 
Without an exception, they were at once scholarly and 



THE CONVENT OF SAN LAZZARO, 129 

childlike, — rare faces, wliich one would note and ad- 
mire and trust anywhere, the very realization of the 
apostolic injunction to be wise as serpents and harm- 
less as doves. 

After the services were ended, we went into the 
little bookstore room, and looked over the specimens 
of their printing, and translation, and photography. 
They have done the Emperor Napoleon the honor to 
translate his history of Caesar. By its side lay a trans- 
lation of Paradise Lost, handsomely bound, and dedi- 
cated to Queen Victoria. We bought several pam- 
phlets : one a brief history of their society, from which I 
suppose I ought to have half filled my letter, and told 
all about its being founded in Constantinople, in 1700, 
by Mechitar, a learned Armenian ; and thence moved 
to Modon, in the Morea, in 1702 ; then broken up by 
the war between the Venetians and Turks in 1715, and 
moved to the island of San Lazzaro in 1717, where it 
has been thriving and prospering ever since, and is 
now rich, owning lands in Padua and Pome, and bank- 
stock in Venice, not to mention the twenty-seven 
Swiss cows. It is doing a great work in the gratuitous 
education of Armenian youth, the translation of stan- 
dard books into the Armenian language, and the distri- 
bution of them throughout Asia. I bought also an 
odd little book, a collection of popular Armenian songs, 
translated into Enghsh, from which I copy one. We 
see that the things of the earth speak the same words 
to poets under all suns. 

THE YOUNG MAN AND THE WATER. 

Down from yon distant mountain 

The water flows through the village. Ha, 

A dark boy came forth, 

And washing his hands and face, 

Washing, yes, washing, 

And turning to the water, asked: "Ha, 

Water, from what mountain dost thou come, 

my cool and sweet water, HaV " 

6* I 



I30 



THE CONVENT OF SAN LAZZARO, 

"I came from that mountain 

Where the old and the new snow lie one on the other.'' 

'' Water, to what river dost thou ^o, 

my cool and sweet water, HaV " 

**T go to that river 

Where the bunches of violets abound, Ha! ** 

*' Water, to what vineyard dost thou go, 

O my cool and sweet water, Ha? " 

" I go to that vineyard 

Where the vine-dresser is within, Ha! '* 

*' Water, what plant dost thou water, 

my cool and sweet water, HaV " 

*' I water that plant 

Whose roots give food to the lamb ; 

The roots give food to the lamb, 

Where there are the apple-tree and the anemone.'* 

*' Water, to what garden dost thou go, 

O my cool and sweet water. Ha? " 

' ^ I go into that garden 

Where there is the sweet song of the nightingale, Ha! '* 

"Water, into what fountain dost thou go, 

my cool and sweet little water ? " 
*' I go to that fountain 

Where thy lover comes and drinks ; 

1 go to meet her and kiss her chin. 
And satiate myself with her love." 

Just as we were ready to leave, our friendly host — ■ 
for not knowing whose name we shall never forgive 
ourselves — came running in from the garden with a 
large bouquet of roses, and verbenas, and orange blos- 
soms, and said, in his pleasant broken English, ^' Again 
you will come?" "Yes," I said; ** again I will come, 
if there be a next summer." 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 

Nice, Monday, November 23, 1868. 

DEAR PEOPLE: Nineteen days since I sailed 
away, and this is the first minute when I could 
look far enough ahead to venture to try to tell what I 
had seen. It has been a whirl and a maze. On the 
whole I like it, though I would rather not be out of 
breath. But that I can't help till I get to Rome ; so 
if my letter has the sound of one who has just run up 
hill, and cannot wait a moment before beginning to tell 
his news, you will be patient^ and put in your own 
colons and commas where I leave mine out, which will 
be all along. 

Of the voyage you don't care to hear. The smooth 
ones are pretty rough, I think, and the rough ones 
must be unspeakably awful. This was a smooth one, 
they said, and also they said that I was not at all sea- 
sick. I suppose they must know, and so I give you 
their version of it. Every day we sat on deck ; the 
waves were high, emerald at top, and broke into foam- 
falls to right and left; the flocks of gulls followed us 
all the way, and I almost found out the secret of their 
flying, I watched them so constantly. We ate a great 
deal oftener and a great deal more at each time than 
we ought ; we had hot-water jugs at our feet at night ; 
and the stewards and stewardesses said to us twice a 
day that it was a most beautiful voyage, and fine 
weather as '^ 'eart could wish " ; and so we came to 
Liverpool. I did not get the storm I hoped for, and 
of which the third mate said to me, two days out, 
" We '11 border one hup for your hespecial be'oof, mem." 



132 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER 

Now that it is over, I am rather sorry I was not lashec* 
to a mast in a gale. 

When I saw the mail put ashore at Queenstown, it 
began to dawn on me what a big place the world rxiu§t 
be. Eighty-seven huge bags of mail, half of then; 
too large for a man to stagger under ; and when they 
were piled up on the deck of the tug, they made a small 
hill. Even little Belgium had three big bags. 

As we were going into the Liverpool harbor, we met 
the Russia comhig out, and waved our handkerchiefs 
out of good-fellowship to anything or anybody bound 
for America. In London I found out that Professor 
and Mrs. B. had sailed in the Russia ; so if I had only 
known, my signal would have had great meaning. 

Liverpool looked very old and musty, as if it had 
been finished centuries ago and put away : solid beyond 
anything I ever saw ; such piers, such posts, such 
foundations! G-reat Normandy horses, with shaggy 
pantalettes of hair around their hoofs, seemed to be 
stalking about in all directions, drawing tons of things 
on drays, with wheels too broad to roll. To the 
Washington Hotel we were to go for dinner. Wash- 
ington himself, eleven feet high, done on glass, with a 
stained border of allegory gone mad, confronted us 
as soon as we entered the door. I suppose it is in- 
tended as a delicate bait for Americans, this enormous 
transparency. There may be souls so patriotic as to 
thrill at sight of so much Father to their country. We 
were profanely irreverent, and never stopped laugh- 
ing at it while we stayed. It was only by accident that 
I discovered, in time to secure the afternoon train to 
London, that my ticket, which I supposed all right for 
Paris, must be changed at an establishment in Water 
Street, Liverpool, for something else ; so P. and I 
jumped into a hansom, and drove at such a pace to 
find the man and the spot ! P. had always been afraid 
to get into a hansom, from a vague instinct that it was 
not the thing to do it ; but, emboldened by my vaga- 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 133 

bond indifference, she yielded to her long-suppressed 
desire, and off we dashed. Do you want to know 
what a hansom is like ? I '11 tell you exactly, and 1 
think myself that it is not just the thing for '^ dames 
seules '' to drive about in, but I 'm very glad we did 
it. It is a Franklin fireplace, with cupboard doors in 
front, swung between low wheels, with a high-chair 
fastened to it behind. In this sits the driver with his 
coat-tails flying and his elbows out, far above your 
head, and drives by reins which, to your bewildered 
eyes,_ appear to go nowhere and communicate with 
nothing. You jump in ; the cupboard doors fiy to- 
gether, and away you go at a rate which would make 
Broadway stare. If I drew pictures for Young Folks, 
I 'd draw a hansom in shape of a larkspur-blossom, 
with a wasp for a horse, and a cricket rearing itself up 
behind to drive. Well, we did it all, got our luggage 
weighed, and bribed a guard at the railroad station 
with a^ shilling, and he took care of us as if we had 
been his grandmothers. He was such a gorgeous crea- 
ture in uniform, that it seemed to me very audacious to 
offer him a shilling. I should as soon have thought of 
giving thirty-seven and a half cents to General Scott ; 
but, dear me, how he appreciated it ! A burly old Eng- 
lishman came up, and made as if he would get into the 
carriage with us ; unblushingly our champion told him 
the seats were all taken, and hustled him off to another 
car. Then he came back, and without a smile, said as 
deliberately as if he were recounting the most praise- 
w^orthy action, " I 've got 'im into another car, but I 
donno as 'ee '11 stay there." 

Before we knew it, we had glided out of the station •, 
they have such a marvellous way of beginning with their 
engines, noise being the one thing forbidden. Only 
three stops we made between Liverpool and London 
and we were only five hours on the road. It was so 
soon dark that 1 had but glimpses of the fields and 
houses. The houses were odd-looking ; so much more 



134 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 

color than ours ; gray^ with red and white bricks in bor- 
ders up and down the sides. The fields were as green as 
if it had been September, smooth and tilled and ditched 
to the last possible point of cultivation. Even in those 
tv/o hours of daylight, I ached to see a tangle in some- 
thing, or a rough corner. The railway station in Lon- 
don was as quiet as possible. I am perfectly bewil- 
dered to conceive how they manage to have such quiet. 
There must be as many trunks and as many people, 
but nobody screams and nobody bangs* no cabman 
comes near you ; you find your luggage all in a pile by 
itself, sorted out as exactly and alphabetically as if it 
were clean clothes from the wash ; and there you are, 
the whole thing over. I should think that when a for- 
eigner is first confronted by a mob of New York hack- 
men with their whips, he would be positively frightened. 
But I shall never get through at this rate. I must lay 
down the rule in the outset not to say what I ihirik. 
At nine o'clock we were going up the steps of Batt's 
Hotel, 41 Dover Street, Piccadilly. We had tele- 
graphed for rooms, 'so we were met and welcomed, 
which is always pleasant ; and by such a stylish-look- 
ing dame, in a black silk gown, with a gold chain! 
Another eminently respectable dignitary Ht our fires; 
she wore a Honiton lace cap. A third, also in a lace 
cap, lugged up our bags. If a preponderance of our 
own sex could make us reputably established, we were 
on the pinnacle of propriety, 0, how blessed it 
seemed to have the floor quiet under our feet, and no 
wrigghng or twisting screw in the cellar, no plash of 
water on our bedroom walls! The first house in 
which one sleeps after a sea- voyage must seem like a 
Paradise, I am sure. Nothing will seem to me again 
so home-like as those smutty bedrooms and that dingy 
parlor. G-reat blazing fires of cannel coal in every 
room, and the air filled with the smoke of them I 
They are " too fillin' at the price," cosey as they look at 
first. All day you wipe your face, and at night you 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 



135 



start back from it in the glass. The streets are smoky, 
the bread is smoky, the pillow-cases are smoky. I 
wonder the word "white" doesn't die out of the lan- 
guage. We saw no sun till we came away ; — it was 
always just before light ! 

We had our dmner and breakfast in state in our own 
sitting-room, and a waiter in such a dress-coat, with 
such a white lace necktie, and such gold studs of the 
size of a pea ! He was too fine to be reproved for 
never remembering the kind of bread we ordered. 
Sunday morning P. and I took a cab, and drove 
three miles to South Place Chapel, Finsbury, to hear 
my old friend Mr. Conway preach. Strangely enough, 
it chanced that he gave that day an account of the 
meeting of the Free Religious Associations, which met 
in Boston last May. It was hke overtaking a tidal 
wave, to have journeyed to this little English chapel in 
time to hear those grand words of John Weiss and 
Robert CoUyer, echoing on this shore ! 

In the evening we went to hear Spurgeon. This 
was a great disappointment. The Tabernacle was 
worth going to see, — eight thousand people with in- 
tent upturned faces, — but when at least six thousand 
of those eight are coughing incessantly, and only one 
man to out-tale the coughing, the result is uncom- 
monly unpleasant. It is a scramble to get a seat, but 
a worse scramble to get out. We did not stay. We 
tried to look as if we were faint, but I fear we got 
quite too red, what with the elbowing and the disgust. 
Spurgeon may be eloquent sometimes; he certainly 
was not eloquent that night. He was simply a great, 
strong, coarse, earnest man, who said commonplace 
things with huge emphasis of fist and voice. He called 
the scribes *' spiritual mosquitoes," and said that when 
Christ asked them certain questions, he '^ had 'em there." 
This is all I remember of what he said, except that 
his prayer lasted twenty minutes. 

Monday was a day never to be forgotten. From 



J 36 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 

ten until five P. and I drove about that great city; 
peering into book-shops on Paternoster Row (no 
Christina Eossetti could I find in tw^elve shops, — had 
to go to her publishers) ; getting water-proof cloaks, 
and walking through Westminster Abbey, all in a 
breath ; palaces ; Houses of Parliament ; dmner at 
Blanchard's : mob and orator in some great square, — 
how they did scream and toss their hats, and the police 
ordered one brougham to move along ; the famous 
Mrs. Brown's millmery shop, where hats went by doz- 
ens and guineas by scores ; Regent Street ; Trafalgar 
Square; all in a smoke, and all so cold, so raw, we 
shivered like Boston people in March ; home after dark 
to dinner ; and that was my day in London. 

Tuesday, the train to Folkestone, — ten till one, — • 
woods all yellow and brown, — hedges black and filmy- 
lookmg as we whirled by. Folkestone, picturesque old 
town, built up and up, high gray stone houses; on 
the wharf, a motley crowd, as the newspaper-writers 
say, — English. Scotch, Irish, Yankee, and French, — 
and the hideous green Channel leering triumphantly 
out at us all from under a fog. It was rather ugly. A 
drizzle, almost a rain ; people scrambling for floor-room 
to he down in the cabin ; before we had been out ten 
minutes, sailors coming up from below with dacks of 
unpleasant crockery bowls, which they put down here 
and there by twos and threes in everybody's reach ! 
How could the stomach of any but a blind man resist 
that? We clung to a settee on deck; pitying men 
who sailed the boat took off their coats and covered 
us up; and it only lasted two hours-, then we were 
at Boulogne. This was France. Drolly enough, the 
Frenchiest-lookmg thing I saw on the hill was a little 
dog, which behaved so comically about his barking and 
running and stricking up his tail, I fancied he would 
have looked foreign to me if I had seen him in America. 
His every hair seemed electric. 

We walked to the railroad station, and a jabbering 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 137 

French boy carried our bags. Behind us and before us 
clattered the fishermen's wives, with their wooden 
shoes, down at the heels and slipping off at every step. 
I thought horses were coming directly upon me, and 
jumped to one side ; three of these women ran by laugh- 
ing ! We lunched in a buffet, where the big cook was 
all in white, — white paper cap, white linen apron, — 
things astonishingly good to eat and hard to pronounce. 
Then more railway, five hours of it, and we were in Paris. 
Here the same astonishing quiet, but a tedious waiting 
till the laggage was sorted. Presently a tall man, with 
^' Interpreter'' on his hat-band, appeared. Even N., with 
all her excellent knowledge of French, was glad to see 
him. Only one little trunk, of all our eight packages, 
was opened by the Custom House officer, and he 
politely looked another way while he lifted the lid. 
Several ornamented and caparisoned creatures helped 
us off, and we rattled away, luggage and all, long before 
some of the parties who had men to look after them, 
had got out. " 9 Rue Castighone, — whatever time by 
night or day you arrive, come straight there," S. C. 
had written to me. So there we went, and at the 
head of the eighth (I think) flight of stairs, there she 
stood waiting to welcome me ! P. and N. drove on to 
the Hotel Windsor, where their rooms had been en- 
gaged by telegraph, — and this was the beginning of 
Paris! I began to scent the world, the flesh, and the 
devil before I had been in the house five minutes. I 
found my friends up to ears in clothes, and whereas I 
had been harassed with thinking they were waiting 
for me all this time, no, they were not ready to set 
off for Eome yet ! More " thmgs " were yet to come 
home, and we could not possibly get off till Thurs- 
day night. Well, thus it moved on again to Friday 
morning ; and those two days in Paris cost me, I 
won't say what, because it was so very little intrinsi- 
calhj. Only I and my own conscience know how 
much more it was than I ought to have spent. Paris 



X3S 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRA VELLER. 



is just what I thought it was, — New York grown up, 
graduated and with a diploma I I do not care if I never 
see it again ; certainly I did not see much of it then. 
It was absolutely necessary to rest ali day Wednesday. 
Thursday I looked at the outside of some of the lions, 
and the inside of some of the stores. It is evident 
that people ought never to buy anything in Paris with- 
out a Paris resident to go with them and show them 
how. None of the things that we have bought are cheap. 
I had great fun out of not speaking French, — for in the 
midst of all the humiliation of it, it is funny. The 
conversation with my chambermaid — I talking English 
and French, and she French ! — somehow by dint of 
fingering a good deal, we made out. The ignorance of 
the English language among these people is really 
melancholy. But it is a consolation sometimes to tell 
them face to face what they can't understand ! The 
woman who brought home my hoop said, eying my 
humble attire with ill-concealed contempt, ''Madame 
will need some other things, will she not ? " '' Heaven 
forbid ! " said I, shaking my head, and adding '' Non, 
non," — P. sitting by convulsed with laughter at the 
woman's stare. French women who have things to 
sell never stop trying to make you buy. Shb kept 
on — I dare say she did really pity me for having to 
wear such clothes, — '' Madame would certainly like 
a ruffled petticoat ipour le voyaged '' Gret thee behind 
me, Satan! " I said, bowing and smiling, and pressing 
her towards the door. I think she crossed herself when 
she got outside ! So did I too ! What becomes of con- 
scientious convictions on the subject of dress, what 
becomes of exact calculations as to the proper expen- 
diture of a limited income, in the Paris air, I don't know. 
I should like to see the woman who could go through 
Paris, and not buy a gown, the shape of the things ! 
their dainty last touch ! and they pile up their tempta- 
tions so ! You must have gloves ; of course it is simple 
duty to go to the glove store and buy them. Ah, what 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 13 g 

do you see just under your elbow ! — neckties, — just a 
few, — blue, with point lace and seed pearls, — just the 
ravishing thing for some brown-haired darling in Amer- 
ica — and it would almost go in a letter, — and it is 
only twelve francs ! How you pat yourself on the 
head if you get out of the shop without buying it — 



Genoa, Friday Evening, November 27. 

Right into the middle of that last sentence, my dears, 
broke the decision that we must set out for Grcnoa in 
an hour. We had waited all day Monday for sunshine, 
and half of Tuesday, and it was foohsh to wait longer. 
I have always heard Nice called a " garden." It is the 
moistest, coldest, muddiest garden I ever saw, and has 
the worst fireplaces! The flowers, to be sure, are like 
a carnival in every direction, — roses of all colors, 
oranges, aloes, all the flowers I ever saw in a con- 
servatory, all blossoming at once, apparently, in and 
out of season, — bat how they stand the cold fog, I 
can't imagine. They did n't seem to shiver. I suppose, 
now, I shall never tell you how we rode from eleven 
o'clock, Friday morning, tiliytve Saturday^ p. m., to get 
from Paris to Nice, and did n't die of it ; nor about the 
American Consul, Judge A., who came to see us Sunday 
evening, and told us volumes of gossip about the old 
dethroned kings, and unprincipled princesses and Rus- 
sian countesses who pull each other's ears in Nice; 
all about the poor Prince of Monaco, who sold his soul 
to the Devil to pay his tailor and keep his little handful 
of kingdom, making it the legalized gambling-ground 
for all Europe. (Afterward, we looked down on it 
from the high hills on the Cornice Road ; it looked 
like a tidy enough httle peninsula, with no elbow-room 
for either saints or sinners.) Monday morning the 
kind Judge came agam and walked us about to have 
one glimpse of the Public Gardens and the fine Pro- 
menade Anglais. This lies along the shore of the sea. 



I40 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 

and all fashionable people walk there in fine clothes 
every afternoon. It is a concentrated Bellevue Ave- 
nue, dear Newporters, and all the Nice people (not the 
nicest, I suppose) go away and let their houses just as 
you do. Every other villa has its sign up, " a louer^' 
and it seemed positively odd not to see " apply to 
Alfred Smith " below it. I can't tell you about all this, 
nor about these three last days on the Cornice Road, 
because the latter is too long, and I have no time here 
to write. The last three days have been to the eye 
what the full orchestra is to the ear. Even from 
divinest music one must rest. I looked away from the 
sea, the olives, the crags, the snow-covered hills, and 
studied the little roadside flowers till I could look up 
again. Sweet- alyssum grows like grass all along the 
road from Nice here. 

Now I shall warm myself before a fire in a cave 
under a marble mantel-piece and go to bed. I don't 
think I should have any more realization of being 
lodged in an old palace, if I knew what particular 
Gruelph or Grhibellme had toasted his ftet on this very 
slab, than I have now. Sach a fresco is over my head, 
— such a distance as my walls reach up ! I go about 
in the dark with a candle like an old woman in a great 
dark barn with a lantern. I get up on a chair to step 
into my bed. There is a tapestry-hanging which con- 
ceals a door; the door is just behind my bed, — it 
won't lock, and has already been opened once by mis- 
take. If this is n't splendor, what is ! We are so gay 
with it all, we don't know what to do with ourselves, 
and we are unpacking our pm-cushions and slippers as 
if we meant to stay a week, instead of two days To- 
morrow, palaces, churches, jewelry ! Monday we move 
on towards Eome, — just how we don't know, but as 
fast as we can. 

Nobody knows half so well as I do how stupid this 
letter is. But when you come to try at it yourselves, 
you '11 find that it is harder than you think. There Ls 
so much too much to say. 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, i^j 



Rome, Monday, December 14, 1868. 

DEAR SOULS: Now we are at housekeeping-, 
and this is my house-warming letter. Did n't 
we have a time of it to get a house at all ? 0, how 
easy it looked at first ! Every other house has up 
its sign, " Camere Mobiliate " : we were not at all 
ambitious ; all' we demanded was to have sun in 
all our rooms, three bedrooms, and a fire in each 
bedroom. What could be simpler? How our spirits 
went down, down, as we clmibed up staircase after 
staircase, and found dark rooms, no stoves, or else a 
kitchen where the Padrona must have the privilege 
of coming to cook ''just a little trifle two or three 
times a day " ; or else a rent of one hundred and forty 
dollars a month. Ah, at the end of the first day we 
were very meek people, and at the end of the second 
we were abject ' There can't be many things in this 
world so bewildering as looking after lodgings in Rome. 
In the first place, the door into which you enter, at 
the begmning, looks like the very dirty and neglected 
entrance to some old warehouse on a wharf, in a city 
where there has not been any business for a hundred 
years. You stand there a minute, and say, " dear! " 
(especially if you have already been up five or six 
hundred steps that morning,) " I do wish they would 
tell on their cards how many rooms there are ! " Per- 
haps we shall find somebody on the third floor who 
can tell us. Not a bit of it ; up flight after flight you 
crawl ; on each floor is one great grim iron door, with 
a ring and a chain hanging outside. You have no 
busmess to pull the ring on any floor but the floor 
with which your business is; and if you did, they 



142 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 

would n't know anything about any floor but theii 
own. Each floor is its own house^ as much as if it 
were six miles off" from any other floor. When you 
get up to the one hundred and seventh stair you would 
be so glad to sit down, but you can't. They don't put 
either chairs or benches in these grim passages ; 
and the stairs are all stone. You can't sit on them, 
not if you are half dead ; so you lean up against the 
wall and get your black cloak all white and cobwebbed, 
while you wait for the mysterious chain and ring, 
which you have pulled, to bring forth an answer. 
Then the great door creaks and opens, and you get 
breath enough to ask if they have furnished rooms to 
let, and if there are three bedrooms, with sun and fire. 
After a little while you learn that it makes no differ- 
ence whether they have or have not; they always 
say, '-' Si, si, signora." Before you learn this you go in 
quite gayly, and think you are all right. Then you see 
one great bedroom with two beds, and one little one, on 
neither of which the sun has apparently ever shone ; 
a fine parlor, with stands of artificial roses under high 
glass cases, no end of china teacups sitting around ; 
usually about twenty frightful pictures on the walls ; 
in the dining-room there is a great display of glass and 
china on the table ; and the Padrone^ if he is at home, 
and the Padrona^ and the one or two or three daugh- 
ters, all down at the heel, and down at the neck, and 
huddled up somehow with pins and strings in the mid- 
dle, and looking like rag-men and rag-women^ begin 
to talk, all at once, with their tongues and their shoul- 
ders and their fingers ; and they tell you that the sun 
shines at some impossible hour of the day, at some im- 
possible angle, into all three rooms ; and that two beds 
in one bedroom are exactly the same thing as two 
bedrooms with a bed in each ; and that their linen and 
their silver and their furniture are '' so much, so much," 
and '' so fine, so fine " ; and they smile and show whit« 
teeth, and their eyes are s^ch ? lovely brown -black. 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. ^^^ 

that you are in some danger of believing them ; and 
then if j^ou say that you must have a " free kitchen," 
which means simply that they are not to have the use 
of your tea and sugar and bread, they shrug their 
shoulders, and look at each other, w^ith such an ex- 
pression of injury, that you feel like an av^ful sneak 
yourself^ — just as if you had stolen all your life ; 
and for all that, you know that you are the honest 
one, and they steal, and you know the rooms won't 
do at all, and you edge along to the door ; and then 
the faces of the Padrone and the Padrona and the 
daughters all grow black, and the white teeth go down 
their throats apparently, they disappear so absolutely 
and forever ; and as you fairly step out of the door, if 
you wish to know the true character of the people you 
might have lived with, turn around quickly and look 
at the faces which have settled down, behind your 
back ! This is what we did for two days and a half. 
We exhausted the list which friends had given us; 
then we drove slowly up and down the streets where 
it would do to live (by the way, there are not more 
than a dozen of them in all this great city), and looked at 
the signs, and whenever we saw one which we thought 
promised the least chance of success, out we got, and up 
we climbed. In one place we would find a parlor so 
sunny, so comfortable, that we could not leave it ; then 
the bedrooms were wrong ; in another the bedrooms 
could be made to answer, but the parlor was a den, 
and cold as a barn ; then we were taken with great 
love of a view, or of the blankets, or of the china and 
glass, which we would have liked to take away with 
us, to use in the other house, which we still firmly be- 
lieved was awaiting us somewhere. Then we came up- 
on one quite fine and comfortable and sunny, and then 
the rent would be at least one hundred and fifty dol- 
lars a month, and we would meekly say, '' Troppo," 
and go away, followed by pitying looks between the 
landlord and lady. By the way, I never thought be- 



144 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 

fore of the composition of the word '^ landZorcZ and 
lady " : no wonder they are so lordly in their ways. 
At last we found our house. It was my inspiration, and 
I take great credit to myself; high up on the Via 
Quattro Fontane (four fountains), just opposite the 
Barberini Palace, on the corner opposite Miss Hosmer's 
house. Think of that ! Are n't we in luck ? Well, 
it happened oddly that the good people, being modest, 
had stuck out " Piccolo appartamento " on their sign. 

Longingly I had looked at the corner twice, as we 

neared it, and said to S , '' I suppose there is no 

use in looking at anything which an Italian calls in 
the outset ' small.' " 

" no," she said, " not the least." 

So it came to be near night on the third day, and 
we were still homeless. We were driving back to our 
hotel and passed this house. Still the same little sign 
which had seemed all day to have a magic fascination 
for me ! I said, '' Let us look at it ; it will do no harm." 
A strange sort of delight took possession of me as 
I first trod on the stairs ; they were stone, but clean ; 
the flights were short, and the halls were comparatively 
light. Such a beauty as opened the door for us ! Ah, 
if you could see her ! Just now she came to bring me 
an Qg^ beaten up in milk, and as she set it on the table, 
and said, " Signora," the grace and gentleness of her 
motion, the sweetness of her voice, — ah me, I believe 
I had tears in my eyes to look at her. I never saw 
just such a human creature before ! Well, the beauty 
opened the door (she is only a maid of all work, this 
beauty, our Marianina), and then she called the Padro- 
na, who came, having the same sweet, gentle ways, 
but looking so ill, so ill. She, poor soul, has had the 
fever. The rooms were charming, — a parlor on the 
southeast corner, two windows ; a dining-room, two 
bedrooms, and such a kitchen, resplendent with 
copper. But that I 'II tell you about later All 
except the third bedroom, this was our place. How 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 145 

we looked at each other, and went back and forth 
through the dear six rooms (there was one great dark 
room), trying to make them count more than they 
would. I began to feel like the "fifth kitten," and 
think I might as well be drowned. dear, only three 
out of you dear twelve will have the least idea what 
" fifth kitten " means ; never mind, I can't help it, per- 
haps you can find out. Suddenly I said, " Why need 
we have a dining-room ? We are not grand ; we 
shall not entertain any but our own sort; we can have 
dinner in the parlor, and the dining-room will make a 

good bedroom." So it did. So it does ; and L 

sleeps in it, and here we are ! And now I wonder if 
I can tell you how the rooms look, and if you will 
care if I do ; at any rate, it is Roman housekeeping, so 
you might like to know how we do it. Ah, if you 
would all come and do likewise ! I don't believe it is 
in the least "as the Romans do," though; poor souls, 
I have a lurking doubt whether even the Dorias and 
the Borgheses are half as comfortable as we are. The 
two Romans who have come to see us go away out 
into the northeast corner of our little parlor to sit 
down, and look with dismay at our great wood-fire, and 
say, " 0, thank you, I will sit here ; we do not have 
fires." " I think them exqueesetely beautiful," said 
Signor L , the other day, meaning to be very po- 
lite, "but I find them very hot ! " I really think he 
supposed we kept our fire for ornament, and endured 
the discomfort of the heat as the price of the pretty 
display. But this is not telling you about the house ; 
only, from this you will see that we have wood-fires. 
Ay, that we do, in the parlor and in two of the bed- 
rooms ; mine crackles at this moment as lustily as if it 
were of Vermont maple, instead of little round sticks 
of I don't know what, but something quite worthless 
and small, which I amuse myself with by building it 
up mto cob-houses on the hearth, and then the fire 
trips up from side to side and in and out, like an aero- 
7 J 



146 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 

bat. Well, well, now I will be exact, and describe a 
tiling or two. You see this old Rome goes to one's 
head, and it is not easy to keep a steady hand. 

Firstly, comes our parlor ; it is cosey, and that is a 
rare thing here ; it is long rather than square, and it 
has one window to the northeast and one to the east ; 
we make much of the east window, for out of it we 
see such lovely red-tiled roofs, and a bit of an orange- 
garden high up above the roofs, and a whole cypress- 
tree; into it comes straight sun, and that is worth 
solid gold, inches deep, for every inch that it covers 
on our carpet. We don't spread down any Cranford 
papers I not we ! Our northeast window looks out un- 
terrified on the Barberini Palace. There is the lovely, 
sad Beatrice, who will be my friend in rainy days ; I 
have not sat with her yet, because there has been no 
rainy day when I dared to go out ; and on the pleas- 
ant days there is always some artist or other copying 
her, which I should so dislike that I could not see her 
well. Clouds. I think, could not cut off so much light 
as one man. 

At first our parlor had so much glass case and stack 
of flowers and marble-top table, that we did not know 
what to do ; now it has only two marble-topped affairs, 
and they are covered with books ; then there is a mar- 
vellous square dining-table which can be stretched into 
any size, and I firmly believe also into any shape; I have 
n't yet seen it in an octagon, but I expect to. As soon 
as I have learned the Italian verbs, I shall attack this 
table and find out how it goes. Then we have great 
arm-chairs, called poltronas ; (why ? for lazy cowards 
who shirk sitting up straight, I suppose ;) and a sofa 
and common chairs innumerable ; and all these are 
green, and the paper is green, and the carpet is green 
and red. The mantel is covered with red velvet, with 
a deep fringe ; on it is a pretty clock under a glass case, 
and a shepherd and shepherdess, who hold candles. 
There were two china vases, big as hay -stacks, but we 



^ 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 147 

banished them to our art-gallery in the dark room! 
Our parlor would delight us unqualifiedly, if it were 
not for the pictures. We have banished so much of 
the sweet Padrona's china and glass finery, that we 
have not the heart to ask to have all the pictures car- 
ried off; I think we shall do it ultimately, though, and 
are wasting our strength in this interval of martyr- 
dom ; — it is incredible till you have seen it, this pro- 
fusion of awful pictures. Out of the parlor opens a 
bedroom, Miss C 's ; high iron bedstead, lace-cur- 
tained, handsome dressing-table, wardrobe with full- 
length glass, bureau, etc., all marble-topped; then comes 
the dark room ; ah, chaos itself! trunks, chairs, — there ! 
I mean to go this minute and count the chairs in our 
house. There are thirty -two ^ in this tiny little house ; 
it is very droll to see so many ; only four small rooms 
and thirty-two chairs. I am not certain that there are 
not more, for I could not count those very well which 
were piled up in stacks in the dark room. Everything 
is of the nicest quality, solid woods, black-walnut or 
mahogany, with seats of morocco or green or crimson 
damask. But now I shall tell you no more about fur- 
niture, excepting of my writing-desk ; this alone proves 

that the house was predestined for us. Miss F 

says she never saw such a thing in a Roman house be- 
fore; I never sat to write at anything half so fine; 
solid mahogany, quite finely carved, four drawers, then 
a desk covered with green morocco which lets down, and 
reveals a shelf with a looking-glass back, and five 
drawers; (one with a false bottom; how I pine for a 
secret !) then above this another drawer, and on the 
top, room for many of my dear books, if they ever, 
ever get here. This stands across one corner of my 
sunny little bedroom, and one window, on my right 
hand opens on a little ledge called a balcony, and looks 
out on the wall of the Qairinal. Ought I not to write 
to you better than I shall from such a corner as this ? 
Now I must tell you about our kitchen. This is, after 



148 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRA VELLER. 



all, the crowning glory of this wonderful little " apart- 
ment," our house. Such sun as lies in our kitchen, two 
windows full ! and such copper as it shines on ! They 
must have made ready for a minute prince and princess, 
who would give dinners to retinues of small people 
in the little dining-room ; twelve shining copper cas- 
seroles^ all sizes, up to big ones so big an orchard could 
be made into apple-sauce in them ; copper jars with 
handles, copper basins, copper kettles, all hanging on 
the wall in the sun ; all new, shining like mirrors ; 
white wooden table, solid log, on legs, to pound beef- 
steak on ; I think the log must have come from Amer- 
ica; it is huge and looks like hickory. Ah, but the place 
for the fire ! — I don't believe I can tell you how odd 
it is. Every time I go into the kitchen, I stand and 
look and look at it, and Marianina comes in and finds 
me, and looks so anxious, because she is afraid some- 
thing is wrong. Imagine the biggest range you ever 
saw, only not a range at all, just a great stone table 
with an arch under it and a chimney above it; you 
can look right up the chimney; all the steam from 
things you boil goes up this big chimney. You keep the 
charcoal in this arch under your stone table, and you 
build a fire on your stone table, anywhere you like, and 
then there is a little square hole on one side, and you 
fill that with, hot coals from your fire, and set your tea- 
kettle on them; and then you put a great gridiron 
above the whole of your fire, or half of your fire, and 
set your copper casseroles on the gridiron, and that is 
the way you cook. People who know say great and 
delicious dinners can be gotten up by these fires on 
these tables ; we don't cook our dinners ; they come 
in a tin box on a man's head, and are smoking-hot 
when we get them ; so we only try the wonderful 
table-cooking to make our tea, and boil our rice, and 
bake our potatoes for breakfast ; but we are going to 

stew pears, and make oatmeal pudding, and L 

and I have our eye on a surprise of a hash some 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, j^^ 

morning, if we have a chopping- tray, which we have n't 
yet remembered to find out. I must not forget our 
well ; that is in the kitchen too, and it has a door to it, 
a little square door, black like the door to an oven , and 
it is close to the stone table and chimney, so I said, " Of 
course this is the oven " ; and I popped my head in, — 
such a stream of cold air ! and a slender iron chain, and 
a dark wonderful place, which did n't seem to begin or 
end. Then I looked up and I saw the sky; and I 
looked down, and way, way down, near China I should 
think, — or is it you who are at bottom now ? — there 
was a gleam of sunshine on water; then I drew my 
head out, and there stood the Padrona laughing hard. 
How this water is carried about I do not yet under- 
stand ; but there it is, ready and flowing, day and night ; 
sun on it by day, and stars by night, and it comes from 
the fountain of Trevi. So we, of all people in Rome, 
are sure to get so spell-bound that we shall return and 
return, since we not only drink once, but daily, of the 
charmed water ; and not only drink it daily, but bathe in 
it daily ! From each story in this house opens a little 
black door into this secret well-turret. Many times a 
day I hear the chain clinking up and down, as the peo- 
ple above draw water. 

Now one thing more is really part of our house. It 
is on the floor above ; a little open loggia^ out-doors 
room, where, when it is warmer, we shall sit and study 
and work ; this is over our parlor, so looks down on 
the palace, and off over the roofs ; to the east and north 
it has a railing, and rows of geraniums and orange-trees 
in pots around it, and chairs more than we need. This 
is the best thing of all, perhaps. 

Upon this upper floor live our sweet Padrona and 
her husband and little girl. The husband is a master- 
mason, and his name is Biagio Frontoni ; the Padrona 
is Yittoria and the little girl who has, like two thirds 
of the lucky little girls in Rome, the lovely low broad 
brow and straight nose and curved lips on which 



150 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 

mothers here look all their days, is called Erminia. Er- 
minia owns four hens and a cock ; and they live very 
happily on corn up five flights of stairs, and never go 
out. All the money for the eggs is Erminia's, and we 
are so sorry that we don't eat a great many. I take one 
every noon, beaten up in milk, partly for love of Er- 
minia. Yesterday Marianina came running at eleven 
o'clock into the parlor, and, talking very fast, just as if 
I could understand her, laid one of two snow-white 
eggs against my cheek so that I might feel how warm 
it was ! not more than half a minute old I should say ! 
Then, seeing that I was so pleased with that, she dart- 
ed off, and in a minute more came back with the very 
hen cuddled under her arm, as quiet as a kitten ! The 
hen looked as if she must be purring. I dare say she 
was — in Italian, which I don't understand. 

Now what remains for the house-warming, except 
to tell yoii what we have to eat ? Soup, roast-beef, or 
lamb, or mutton, with potatoes ; a chicken or a pair of 
pigeons, with cauliflower, or spinach, or celery; one 
dish of dolci for dessert ; sometimes boiled rice, with 
wonderful sauce made of raspberry-jelly ; sometimes 
puffy pie, which people who eat pie would like ; some- 
times charlotte-russe ; sometimes stewed pears with 
raisins, very delicious: always four courses. This all 
comes in a tin box on a man's head from a restaurant, 
and we pay for it daily only seven francs ; always there 
is meat enough left for our breakfast and lunch the 
next day. Then when we add G-raham bread from the 
English bakery, almost as good as home-made, and but- 
ter fresh each day, a bottle of cream each morning, and 
oranges and apples by dozens, it is plain that we are 
feasting. 

How much does it cost us ? Ah, we don't yet know ; 
we are a little afraid that when we add all up at the end 
of the month, we shall be constrained to decide not to 
eat two oranges apiece at every meal any longer. But 
just now we don't count costs. The rent of our house, 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 15 1 

with the service of the beauty Marianina, who does all 
we want done in doors and out, is seventy-six scudi a 
month, about eighty-one dollars and fifty cents. The 
dinners cost us about forty-five dollars a month, — about 
forty-three dollars a month each, this makes, all told, — ■ 
and we hope to get in the wood and the oil and the bread 
and the butter and the cream and the oranges, etc., with- 
in twenty dollars a month more (for each). This is 
not very cheap living, but then it is Rome. If we had 
come earlier, we could have found cheaper rooms ; and 
if it had been last winter instead of this, everything 
would have been cheaper still ; but if gold will only 
^'stay put " or not get above 135, we shall not grumble 
at paying sixty-five dollars a month for such life as 
this. Now what will there be to tell you next month, 
since I have told you all this now, and I am under 
bonds never to write about ruins ? We shall see ; per- 
haps it will be Ostia, after all; for if we go down 

into those depths with Signor L , the archaeologist, 

who promises to take us, I think there will be some- 
thing worth telhng, in spite of its being ruins I If I 
do not hear regularly each month from you all, I shall 
write no more. How shall I know you care to hear? 
How shall I know you are alive ? God bless you all 
Good by. 



J 52 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 



Rome, Tuesday Eve, January 19, 1869 

DEAR PEOPLE : What do you suppose we do 
with letters ? I '11 tell you. We read them over 
and over and over and over, until we know them just 
as well as we know our alphabets ; and then we put 
them on our table, where we can see them all the time 
till we go to bed ; and then, the next day, we read 
them a great deal more, and carry them in our pockets, 
and feel every now and then to see if they are there ; 
and then, the next day — Well, there is no use in 
going on forever with the story; but there are Amer- 
icans who have been seen reading over old letters in 
the Coliseum ! There now, if you don't all write to 
me after this, you are the nethermost of millstones; 
and, once for all, let me say (because this is my last 
appeal for letters), do write all the most insignificant 
details, — what you have for dinner, and the color 
of your winter bonnet ; what was your last ailment, 
and whether you took aconite or calomel; if your 
front gate is off its hinges, or your minister has had a 
donation-party ; who came in last to see you, and what 
they had to say. Don't suppose that anything can be 
too unimportant to tell. You don't know anything 
about it. Wait till you have been hungry yourself. 
Here ends the '' Complete European Letter- Writer." 

And next ? To-night it shall be about ruins. Don't 
think I forget your savage injunctions, dear young 

woman of N , who said to me, " Don't write about 

ruins, whatever else you do." For all that, I shall tell 
you where L and I went this afternoon. At di- 
vers times, thick envelopes had been left at our door, 
containing the most learned prospectuses of the Brit' 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 1^3 

ish Archaeological Society, and setting forth in terms 
which sounded fine the rules and the advantages of 
being members of the same. We thought we did not 
know enough, and we did not know anybody who be- 
longed, and so it slipped along and we did n't join, and 
yet we had all the while a hankering after it. They 
have a lecture every Friday night in which some es- 
pecial ruin is descriJDed, and then the members of the 
society take an excursion on the next fine day to see 
the ruin. It is the fashion to laugh at this, you know ; 
therefore very few Americans have anything to do 
with it, for which they are silly ; though I dare say I 
should have laughed too, if I had got my first impres- 
sion of it, as one of my friends did, from seeing the 
whole crowd, one day, rushing pell-mell down a steep 
place, not into the sea, but nearly into the Tiber, and 
knocking each other over in their wild eagerness to 
get down to the lecturer, and hear his explanations; 
and perhaps I should have found it a bore if I had be- 
gun with a lecture. But we took the excursion first ; 
and it is that from which we came home, cold and tired 
and hungry, three hours ago, but from which I am 
rested now, and about which I shall tell you, if I can 
get to it. I shall have all the names wrong, but you 
won't care. I shall not have the first name wrong, 
though, for that is Trastevere. I love the very sound 
of the word ; they never mean to live or die out of it, 
these proud poor souls, who think themselves more Ro- 
man than other Romans. I fancy they are all nobler in 
their looks over there. If I were a man I should 
certainly go and live in Trastevere and find out some 
secrets. Painters like to paint the Trastevere women ; 
but About says people have died who looked too curi- 
ously at them : I can easily believe this. 

Well, we drove over an old, old bridge (I know the 
name of that, too, but I won't tell it) into Trastevere, 
and wormed our way in and round the lanes and un- 
der all the washerwomen's wet clothes hanging on lines 
7* 



154 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 

from window to window, and came to the church of 
San Crisogono, from whose steps the Archaeological 
Society were to get out at precisely 2 p. m. (Sounds 
a little bungling for the name of a pleasure excursion, 
does n't it ?) There was the church, solemn and still 
as death. Not a soul to be seen ; we ran round the 
other side ; worse and worse. There were the empty 
carriages in which the A. S. had come (lucky there is 
only one S., for I must really abbreviate it) to Traste- 
vere, but no A. S. ! The coachmen, many of them 
private, looked at us with the becoming nonchalance of 
British coachmen who drove the A. S. about, and we 
thought we would n't ask them any questions ; so we 
prowled a little, and presently a sunny Italian face 
said, " Ecco I Ecco ! " and pointed to a door. He knew 
what we were after, and so, for that matter, did the 
British coachmen. 

Into the door we went, and down a winding stair, 
and plumped right on the A. S. before we knew it. 
There it was, large as life ; it had about a hundred 
legs, all pretty badly dressed. I don't know which 
were ugliest, the trousers or the petticoats. A gray- 
haired man in the middle of the group was talking 
earnestly and showing photographs, and everybody 
was crowding up to see ; the place they were in was 
like a great open cellar with high walls, and several 
other cellars opening out of it. L and I felt a lit- 
tle dashed at first, but in a moment our friend Signor 

L stepped up, and took us under his wing, and 

there we were launched as archaeologists. 

I must tell you about Signor L . Miss C 

had a letter to him, and we were told that he had 
charge of government excavations, and could do more 
than any one else to show us curious old ruins, was a 
distinguished archaeologist, etc., etc. So the letter was 
sent, and we waited patiently for the first visit from 
the archaeologist. We thought he would be middle- 
aged, rather stout, wear gold spectacles, and be a little 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 



155 



bald. Ha ! the bell rang one night, and in skipped a 
slender figure in full evening dress, lavender kids, and 
a violet in his button-hole ; he sank down with a mix- 
ture of timidity and vivacity perfectly overwhelmxing, 
on the tip of a chair, and with a burst of infantile laugh- 
ter said, '' I do not speak any Eenglis but a leettle." 

This was Signor L , and we had hard work that 

first night to keep grave faces. Now we know him 
very well, and find him entertaining and clever ; but he 
has still the same infantile way, and I begin to doubt 
if Italian young men ever grow up. He told us the 
other day, with perfect gravity and evident sincerity, 
that his mother "would not permit him to leap in 
riding ! " 

But I forget that I left you " in a cellar." In this 
cellar, too, were hidden secrets; it was the old bar- 
racks of a Roman cohort in the time of the Emperors. 
In the court-yard the soldiers had lounged and scrib- 
bled on the walls. There they were still, the uncouth 
faces and figures they had drawn ; names and dates ; 
the name of the consul at that time ; and, best of all, 
the date of the Emperor's birthday ; and that, Signor 
L said, was the only record of that Emperor's age. 

In a little niche on one side were figures of Mercury 
in rough fresco ; this was a little chapel dedicated to 
his worship. In the middle of the court-yard was a 
stone rim of a fountain, star-shaped. On this lay 
bits of all sorts of old marbles which had been dug up 
in the different rooms ; and the gray-headed man laid 
his photographs on them : so the years met ! 

I am quite sure that we were the only Americans 

there, except Professor Gr . Everybody else was 

as British as British could be. We did not stay long 
in the cellar, of which I was glad, for it was colder 
than any place ought to be into which the sun shone. I 
felt as if ghostly breaths blew on us from every corner. 
Then we climbed up the stairs again, and the A. S. 
which drove o^ot into its coaches, and the A. S. which 



iS6 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 



walked took to its very strong legs, and the procession 
moved off. It v^as a little like a funeral, but we did 
not drive far; the first carriage stopped, and then all 
the others stopped, and the gray-headed man, who 
had on a cloak with a pointed hood and kept the hood 
over his head, led us down on the banks of the Tiber, 
to what looked to me like the mouth of a drain, if I 
might be so bold. I gave most irreverent inattention 
to all he said here ; I gathered only that he believed 
that the priests used to wash their knives at that par- 
ticular spot. I did n't believe it for all that, and I 
looked at the Tiber while he talked. '' Yellow Ti- 
ber " sounds well ; Macaulay never could have got on 
without that adjective ; but it is such a license, no poet 
any nearer than England would have ventured on it. 
The water looks just like the water in the puddles in 
brickyards, dirty, thick, dead, drab ; as for " shaking 
its tawny mane," it does not look as if it ever stirred 
so much as a drop, and all the craft that are on it look 
as if they had roots hke pond-lilies and would n't come 
up. They are all tipped a little to one side, and seem 
to lean on the banks, and I don't believe one has been 
in or out for five thousand years. I have looked and 
looked in vain to see even a little boat m motion there ; 
and the longer you look, the thicker and the stickier the 
water seems, and the more lifeless and useless the ships 
and the two or three hulking steamboats look, and the 
more real and intent the old bits of stone ruins become, 
till it would not astonish you to see Julius Caesar him- 
self step out from under one of the gray lion's heads 
and knock all the sham of modern shipping into a 
cocked hat, before you could say Jack Robinson. Sure- 
ly it takes quite a long time to say Jack Robinson ; so 
if any of you know how this bit of slang came about, 
please tell me when you write. But, I forget ! you 
never write; so it 's no use asking you questions. 

Presently I found that the A. S. was moving off 
again ; dear me, they did look as if they knew all 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, j-^ 

about that drain (it was n't the Cloaca Maxima though, 
I took care to find out that much) ; but I made up for 
not having attended to the drain when we reached the 
Emporium. This reahy did thrill my insensible soul ; 
here were the old wharves, in the old days, and here 
lay the blocks of marble which were brought and un- 
loaded and never carried away ; who knows why ? 
Like pebbles under your feet were strewn bits of old 
red pottery, where the unlucky or the thriftless broke 
the jars in which had come oil or dates to be sold. 
Ah, this was really worth looking at ! 

From a hole in the side of the bank stuck out a huge 
column of dark marble, only half unburied ; this is the 
largest column known of its kind, and when the great 
council meets next year, they are to set it up on some 
hill in Rome ; then the A. S. said the other end of the 
column could be seen by going into another hole, far- 
ther back. Why we all wanted to see the other end of 
it, Heaven only knows ; but we all ran like sheep ; 
hopped up and down over the great blocks of marble, 
and then, when we got to the hole, only one could go 
in at a time, and nobody could see anything after get- 
ting in. This seemed to make everybody more anx- 
ious to go in ; and when you saw that you had to bend 
yourself nearly double, and poke in head foremost 
down a slope, with every chance oi falling on your 
nose, it became irresistible. Everybody said breath- 
lessly to those coming out, ^' Did you see it ? " and 
the come-outers said deprecatingly, " Why no, I can't 
say I did exactly ; it 's pretty dark." And so we all 
asked, and so we all replied, and that was the end of 
that. 

Then the Baron Y arrived, who was to give 

some explanations of these ruins; he came running, 
with the light of joy on his old face, and a little bit of 
stone in a w4iite paper, which he showed to the gray- 
headed man in the hooded cloak; and they both 
gloated ; and everybody crowded up and looked over, 



Igg ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 

and after all it was rather worth while. A bit of stone 
•they had just found, yellow jasper from Sicily ; very, 
very old, and very, very rare. Then the Baron put it 
into his mouth and wet it, as if it were a small jewel, 
and held it up again, rubbing it in the sun to bring out 
the colors. And then the British A. S. stretched up 
its fifty necks to see. Then the Baron began to talk, 
and dear me, what should it be but French ! So being 
of an ingenuous and just turn, I slipped off, and gave 
up my good place at his elbow to somebody who could 
understand modern French on the subject of Eoman 
ruins, spoken by an aged Baron without many teeth ; 
and that was about the last of the archaeological ex- 
cursion. 

Then L and I drove home by way of the Piazza 

Navona, where are more oranges and apples to sell 
than all Rome could ever eat, one would say. The 
orange-stalls dazzle you like the setting sun's light on 
a great front of glass windows, on a hot day. We 
wanted some sour apples ; Romans don't know what 
the word means ; there are no sour apples here ; but 
there are some which are just not sweet, and they are 
better than nothing. When I begin to stammer out 
my few substantives at the stalls, the men and women 
gather round and laugh so good-naturedly, that I 
don't mind their cheating me, which of course they 
will do in spite of all I can say. Once, though, I did 
make a stand with a little black-eyed rascal who sold 
oranges, and asked me two soldi apiece for them, when 
I had that very morning been told by Marianina that I 
should give but one. I shook my head and said " Tin 
soldo ^ un soldo. '''' How he did asseverate and reiterate, 
and at last said a soldo and a half; on which I told the 
driver to ^' drive on" ; and in two seconds my orange- 
boy had signalled to the driver to stop, and was pour- 
ing the oranges into the bottom of the carriage, and 
laughing just as roguishly at me as if it were the best 
joke going that I had detected him. '' S\ s\ signora; 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, j^^ 

un soldo ! " Of course strict morality would have re- 
fused to compound felony (or whatever they may call 
it, to encourage dishonesty) by buying oranges of such 
a little liar ; but I only laughed as hard as he did, and 
bought two dozen. 

Tliur&day^ p. m. — Now something better than ruins ; 
we have seen the lambs blessed at the church of St. 
Agnes. Did n't somebody who did n't know tell us it 
would be at 9 a. m. ? and as the church is outside the 
walls, did n't we get up at seven, and breakfast shiver- 
ing at eight, and see icicles in the fountain in the Bar- 
berini Piazza as we drove out ? However, the sun 
was clear and bright, and the mountains looked like 
clouded sapphire against the sky, and it was only an 
hour too early. 

We had time to see the church thoroughly (it is a 
cellar, by the way, rather cold on a frosty morning) 
and get good seats, before the mass began; I have 
given myself papal absolution from my vow never to 
sit through another high mass ; because, you see, they 
are so wily they put the things you do want to see 
after these tedious masses instead of before them, so 
you have to sit it out. The crowd grew tremendous, 
and began to push and scramble long before the lambs 
came. Luckily a priest had moved a huge Prie-Dieu 
just in front of us ; so we were sure not only of a barri- 
cade, but of something to mount upon in crises. 

At last came the servants of the cardinal with their 
droll long-bodied coats trimmed all over with uphol- 
stering gimp, elbowing a passage through the crowd ; 
behind them two men in uniform, each bearing a good- 
sized lamb on a red damask cushion, its eyes tied, its head 
half covered with red and white and green flowers, 
and bows of red ribbon stuck here and there in the 
wool. You would n't have thought tliey would look 
pretty, but they did ; it is so hard, I suppose, to spoil 
a lamb ! But what they did to the lambs after they 
carried them behind the high altar I don't know, we 



l6o ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 

could not see ; but they were presently brought out 
agam, and laid, cushions and all, under the great mar- 
ble dome over the altar, and at the feet of the statue 
of St. Agnes herself. While they lay there the cardi- 
nal and the priests and the choir, and the sackbuts and 
the dulcimers and the fiddles, were all chanting and 
singing and going on, and the lambs once in a while 
said "Baa, baa," which was the only thing I under- 
stood of it all, and produced the most marked sensation 
in the crowd. 

I had a dear little Itahan boy to hold up on the top 
of the desk ; and when the lambs baaed he laughed 
out, and his nurse from behind, who had consigned him 
to heretic hands with about equal misgiving and grati- 
tude, reached over and jerked him and told him to be 
still. But I encouraged him to laugh. One poor little 
lamb kept lifting up its head and shaking the flowers, 
and the man who held it pressed its head down again, 
till you could hardly see that it had a head at all. 
Then the men cleared a way again through the crowd, 
and the poor little creatures were carried off; and good 
Catholics pressed up to touch them, as they were car- 
ried by ; and then we came away, only stopping on the 
staircase to try to read some of the odd inscriptions 
from the tombs of the early Christians, which are built 
into the walls, — the inscriptions I mean, not the early 
Christians. This sentence is about as good as one in 
Murray where he speaks of this ceremony, and says 
that the lambs " are afterwards handed over to the 
nuns of a convent in Rome, by whom they are raised 
for their wool, which is employed in making the pal- 
liums distributed by the Pope to great Church digni- 
taries, and their mutton eaten ! " It is true about the 
wool, but the lambs are never killed. They are usually 
given to Roman families, and kept as pets ; an English 
priest told me so to-day. 

We are luxuriating now in clear cold weather; at 
least I am. There are misguided souls (or bodies) that 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. i6i 

like the warm days ; but I find tliem insupportably 
enervating. As for the sirocco, wlien tliat blows all 
hope forsakes a person of nerves ; you feel as if you 
were a thousand needles, assorted sizes ! Good by and 
good by, and Grod bless you all ! 



J 62 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 



Rome, Monday, February 15, 1869 

DEAR PEOPLE : Will you be relieved, I wonder, 
or appalled, when I tell you that I have decided 
not to try to send you more than seven days in this 
letter I Such a seven days as it was, though ; if I 
could only have photographed the seven sunshines, 
each bluer and whiter and yellower than the one before 
it ! Spring is spring nowhere but here, I begin to sus- 
pect. No matter if a possible fever does lurk in every 
golden hour, and a certain weariness and lassitude in 
every whiif of the hot south-wind, you don't care; 
you glance up and down and run swiftly into the sunny 
spots with no more care than the lizards, who outstrip 
you, do your best. 

Well, it is to be a week that you are to spend with 
me, and you came a week ago last Thursday morning, 
February 4, and I said, " Grood, you are just in time 
for a delightful excursion to the Palace of the Caesars, 
with the Archaeologicals, this afternoon," — so we set off, 

P and I in a little low carriage, and the rest of 

you on your broomsticks in the air, as you always go 
nowadays with me everywhere. When we got to the 
door of the enclosure, there was the Archaeological 
Society at bay ! door shut ! the old gray hat of John 
Henry Parker bobbing up and down above its worthy 
wearer's excitement and indignation, as he was par- 
leying with the custode, and explaining to the crowd 
of Britishers that, owing to an unfortunate misunder- 
standing, we could not go in. There had been some 
mistake, some informality; of course there had, and 
Mr. Parker, being by nature a blunderer, had made it. 
Then danced up the gay Signor L with his violets in 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRA VELLER. 



163 



his button-hole, and hishttle cane, — ineffable mixture of 
infant, archaiologist, and Marble Faun ; and he chuckles 
in his broken English over Mr. Parker's blunder, and 
says, " 0, I am so emused to see such many people so 
deesappointed ! ^"^ we laugh till we are ashamed, and 
have to slink behind other people not to be seen. The 
crowd is quite large, fifty or sixty people ; — some 
drive off; some follow Mr. Parker, who dashes across 
the road, past the Basilica of Constantine, with its 
three grand old arches, and in among the blocks 
of everybody's house, and everybody's temple, and 
everybody's road, all lying about in centuries of con- 
fusion, between the Basilica and the Coliseum. We 
saunter along after them, but not of them, and finally 
sit down on what was a doorstep, I dare say, in the 
days when Bomulus went to late suppers ; and there 
we talk, and knock the sacred bits of marble with our 
parasols and canes, just as if we had hobnobbed with 

ancients all our lives. At last Signer L says, ^' This 

is too stoopeed ; we will not do it more ; let us go into 
the Coliseum." So he shook hands with Mr. John 
Henry Parker as respectfully as if he beheved he had 
not been in the least to blame for the contretemps^ and 
off we went into the Coliseum, which had all that 
w^hile seemed to be beckoning us with its gray arms. 
You all know just how it looks, I knew that before I 
came ; but how it feels, that is something which don't 
photograph ! — the unspeakable quiet ; the dance of 
lights and shade in and out of the arches ; the dis- 
tance and the nearness of the Grothic spaces of sky, set 
in settings of stone, and looking like sapphire gates on 
which, if you had but wings, you might knock and find 
them opening to you! The noise of the city comes 
in muffled and dulled, you hardly hear it, and, if you 
do, you can hardly remember what it means ; you are 
more tranquil than you supposed this world would ever 
let you become. I have wondered if one could not 
even sit still under one of those arches and be happily 



1 64 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 

and unconsciously changed into wallflower or moss, 
without a pang of death! The wallflowers look per- 
verse enough to have been the result of some such 
uncanny spell cast over human beings; they hang and 
wave and flaunt everywhere but where you can reach 
them, — great blazes of yellow darting and swaying like 
fires on the very tops of the most inaccessible places. 
By and by there will be more, I see, lower down ; but 
at first, while they are a marvel, in these early days of 
February, they are only in spots where no human hand 
can touch them. We went up to the third tier, and 
out through one of the openings, and sat down ; my 
feet were in a fragrant bush, looking and smelling like 
the old-fashioned '' southernwood " in country gar- 
dens. Below us, the mass of mingled earth and ruin 
was a sharp precipice ; we dared not look over. Just 
on the edge, a smilax vme tauntingly held up a clus- 
ter of claret beads, — I thought them seeds ; the Ar- 
chaeologist said they were buds, and, before I could stop 
him, had picked them, to prove his theory true. I felt 
like throwing them on the ground, as King David did 
the water for which a life had been risked ; instead of 
that, we quarrelled still longer over them, neither of us 
knowing enough to prove ourself right, and when I 
got home I found they had fallen out of my bouquet. 

Suddenly we heard a sound of chanting below. 
There was a procession, going from shrine to shrine, 
kneeling down before each one, and chanting their 
prayers ; there were a dozen men shrouded from head 
to foot in coarse brown cloth, hke linen, — only two 
small holes left for the eyes. '' These are they " who 
beg from door to door, shaking a httle tin cup on every 
threshold, speaking no word, and turning away almost 
instantly if nothing is given them. I have been told 
tnat they are many of them noblemen who do this, — 
some of them as a penance, which is imposed by their 
confessor, and they have to walk the streets till they 
have got a certain sum ; some of them belong to a 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. jg- 

fraternity or society, and are pledged to do this so 
many days in the year. They are uncanny objects to 
meet in the street. For two days after this scene in the 
Cohseum I saw them repeatedly, in different parts of 
the city ; in tact, one of them walked by my side one 
morning as I was going to my Italian lesson, and I saw 
that his eyes were black and fiery, and his feet were 
white and finely veined. (Their feet are bare, with only 
a leather sandal.) A monk went before them, with a 
cross, and some twenty or thirty poor people had joined 
the procession. They all fell on their knees, and crossed 
themselves, and chanted aloud before each shrine. One 
poor man, who had a white beard fit for a patriarch, 
carried a sort of square board, perhaps some relic ; at 
the end of each prayer, he threw himself forward full 
length on this board, face down, for a second, and 
seemed to be kissing the earth. Meekly, at a little 
distance, followed another smaller procession, all wo- 
men. ,A nun carrying a smaller cross, a few sisters 
walking on each side of her, and a dozen poor women 
following ; they kept in the rear, and knelt at a re- 
spectful distance from the monks and the men, but 
joined in all the prayers. 0, you can have no con- 
ception of the wild sense of yearning tender pity 
which sweeps over you sometimes in looking on such 
a scene. You think you cannot bear it one minute 
longer ! You must spring down among them and say, 
'' Poor souls, poor souls, this is nothing; do look up, 

and see the sun." I watched Signor L 's face while 

all this was going on, but I could not fathom his ex- 
pression. I could see nothing beyond a sense of the 
picturesque additions which the veiled figures and the 
chanting and the high black crosses made to our view, 
as we looked down on it all from the upper chambers 
of the air ; and yet he is a Roman Catholic, — so good a 
one that he has for five years gone, every spring, into 
a convent for eirjlit days of entire silence. Tliink of 
that I Not one word to a human being for eight days ! 



1 66 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 

There are some of us who would go mad on the 
seventh, if not sooner. It seemed mahcious in the sun 
to hurry down on this particular afternoon, as he had 
not hurried on the day before, but I am sure he set an 
hour earlier! We were suddenly frightened by seeing 
that arch after arch began to lie in shadow, and that 
Mount Gennaro was turning pink; we almost ran 
down the stairs, for you must know that nobody may 
see sunsets from the Coliseum. As for that matter, it 
is at risk of your life you see them anywhere in this 
land of malaria, but in the neighborhood of the Coli- 
seum it is worst of all ; so this was the end of the first 
of our seven days, dear people. 

Then came the Saturday on which we started out 
early for the Baths of Caracalla. You would have the 
Guide-Book carried along, you remember? and I called 
up to you, in the air, as we drove, that you might read 
it for yourselves ; that I would not be tormented with 
its husks of information ; that all I cared to know about 
this most wonderful ruin was that it was begun only 
two hundred years after Christ, and that emperor after 
emperor kept adding and improving till it grew to be 
one hundred and forty thousand square yards big, and 
sixteen hundred people could bathe there at once. I 
don't know whether the historians mention about tow- 
els ! perhaps they did n't mind drying off in the sun ! If 
they had much such sun as this Saturday's, it would 
have been easy (and perfect bliss besides). There 
were great halls for exercises ; great round rooms big 
enough for churches, where a thousand or so took a va- 
por-bath if they liked. Then there were the cold rooms 
and the hot rooms, and the porticos, and the tribunes and 
the galleries , and the walls were painted and the floors 
were mosaic, and everywhere there were grand statues, 
so that the naked men could never have found them- 
selves or each other beautiful. And I don't suppose 
there was a Roman of renown for five centuries who 
did n't have his turn in the tubs ! That was the way 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 167 

it began, but now you see it is quite another sort of 
affair. You cannot follow out the plan of it, even if you 
keep Murray's map under your nose every step of the 
way, and break your shins, in consequence, over the 
great clutter of old stones lying about you everywhere ; 
so presently you reflect that it does n't make the least 
difference to you which room was the " Cella Frigi- 
daria," and which the " Cella Calidaria " ; and as soon as 
you settle that, you can be happy. Then you can 
wander through great-walled square after square, and 
see on which floor there are most daisies ; they are hke 
fields now, — what were the old floors, — thick grass, 
ivies, vines, thistles. (Ah, the beauty of a Roman 
thistle ! Some day I '11 try to tell you just how they 
look ; they are almost the most beautiful of the road- 
side things here.) All about you are these jagged bro- 
ken walls, which look as if they might topple over any 
minute ; where windows used to be are irregular great 
gaps, with vines growing in them ; and presently, as you 
get used to looking up higher and higher, till you see 
the tops of the walls, you see what seems to be another 
earth, midway between you and the sky, and there 
are small trees growing, and vines and bushes hanging 
over the edges and reaching down to meet their 
kindred who are climbing up from below. Then it 
first dawns upon you what gigantic ruins these are, 
and by that time the custode knows you are quite 
ready to scramble up to the top ; so he comes along 
with his key and unlocks a door in the wall, and 
there in the wall is built a narrow ladder of a stair- 
case, up and up and up which you go, and when you 
come out at top you find that the " other earth," 
whose fringes you had seen hanging over, is a 
magic wild garden, on the tops of the old walls, 
with here and there a bit of what was roof in 
Caesar's day, but is now more solid ground than the 
rest. Then you sit down on the safest-looking spot 
you can find, and lean up against a great stone, and 



1 68 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 

think you will never go away. You dare not look 
over ; too dizzy by half. I did wish I knew how high 
these walls were, but of course thai was n't " put down" 
in Murray. The few rare bits of knowledge that I do 
hanker after never are in that unpleasant red book. 
But I can tell you a little by this ; looking over into 
the great chamber where I had been picking daisies, 
I could see no daisies, only dark, still, solemn green. In 
another room men were at work digging down, down, 
for what they might find ; they had struck the floor, but 
from our height it looked like a shapeless dark hole, and 
the men looked like children. 

Here too were the yellow wallflowers, setting their 
torches where only the wind could reach them. the 
cruel lure of a flower you cannot possibly touch ! I shall 
remember some of these wallflowers as long as I live ; 
and those I pick I shall forget, I suppose, though I 
nurture them tenderly for many days in my room. 

We were so blessed in the day we took to see these 
ruins, that we were absolutely alone there : only one 
stuffy old Englishman came, and he did not stay ; he 
wheezed up the staircase, and almost as soon as he 
caught sight of us he went down, looking frightened to 
death at the thought of two independent American 
women sitting with no hats on their heads, alone, on 
the top of the walls of the Baths of Caracalla ! 

But I nearly forgot to say that besides the wonder- 
fulness of being on the top of these walls, and scram- 
bling about dizzily on the brink of jagged unroofed 
chambers, where such thickets of laurestinus and myrtle 
and all other green-leaved things that grow so hide 
the real edge that you feel as if the tiny brown path 
before you might be an illusion and a snare, and the 
next step would be your last ; besides all this, you look 
off over all Rome, and all the wonderful hills which 
encircle the plain, — hills so unlike any others I have 
ever seen that I do not know how to describe them. 
It is not their height, — they ^q not very high ; it is not 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 169 

their shape, — their outhnes are not unique ; and per- 
haps I liave seen other hills as pink and purple and gray 
and blue ; but their beauty is like a subtle beauty in some 
faces, which cannot vindicate its claim by a feature or 
a tint, but which ravishes you, and holds you forever I 
The artists say it is atmosphere. There is an atmos- 
phere to faces too ; so I think perhaps there can be no 
better word for it than that. 

Now have I given you a shadow of an idea of what 
it is like to roam about for four hours in and on the 
Baths of Caracalla ? I am afraid I have not ; and what 
is still more stupid of me, I skipped over from Thurs- 
day to Saturday, and never let you stir out of the house 
on Friday, which was the day for the Villa Pamiih 
Doria ; and there we went and saw the whole of it, 
and picked anemones, — yes, purple and white anemo- 
nes and painted crocuses on the 5th of February. 

The word " villa " I have always had an unreasoning 
dislike lor, and I went one cold, raw day last month 
to the Yilla Borghese, and increased my dislike. It 
seemed to me more dismal than a cellar, and more set 
and Kfeless than a checker-board ; and as for the damp 
chill there was under the trees on that day, I have no 
words to express it. So even in the sun of this Friday 
I set out for the Villa Pamfili Doria with no great glow 
of expectation. Now I must tell you that, by Murray, 
the grounds are four miles in extent, and that it was 
given by a pope to his sister-in-law more than two 
[lundred years ago, so that they have had time as well 
fis room to make a comfortable home of it; and having 
told you this, we will begin at the gate, — a huge and 
high gate with three entrances, statues on the top and 
in niches; then a broad, smooth road, — broad enough 
for three carriages abreast, and on each side smooth 
greensward half white with daisies, — you can't think 
how daisies cuddle in the grass, where they have it all 
their own way all the year round ; then another gate, 
less high, with one entrance ; at the side stands a ser- 
8 



1 70 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 

vant of the Pamfili Doria, in a long blue coat, down to 
his heels, and trimmed with what looks like chintz 
trimming on the collar and sleeves and pocket-flaps. 
He takes off his hat to everybody that comes in, and 
looks as proud as if he represented the hospitality of 
long lines of Dorias. It is really a prmcely thing to 
do, to throw open such a place as this, to the whole 
swarming public, two days of every week, and let 
them eat oranges, if they choose, under the trees, and 
pick all the wild flowers they can. On each side 
of the road are century-plants, seven and eight feet 
high, — grandest things for a wall ; behind them 
great towers of something whose name I don't know, 
— a sort of tall grass with soft tassels or plumes 
that stand up eight feet high instead of falling over, 
but look as light and airy as if they drooped. Presently 
the house appears on the right, — big, and quite ugly. 
I think nobody can look at it much ; yellow and white 
in panels and patches; statues, in niches, of all the 
things in the Book of Ezekiel, I think, — but Mur- 
ray does not mention. Past this, and you are in shade 
of a great avenue of evergreen oaks. It would be 
just as easy to believe that Adam set them out as that 
Innocent X. did, only two hundred years ago. Then 
the road winds in and out, and up and down ; there 
are groves, wild tangles of bushes on sides of hills, 
paths that lead nowhere, ravines, meadows, swamps 
which have not been touched, and swamps which are 
made into ponds, and on which swans sail towards 
the road at sound of wheels. From all the higher 
parts of the road are exquisite glimpses of Pome, of 
the Alban Hills, — which are always blue when the sun 
shines, and which have white villages set like white 
stones along their sides ; these glimpses are most beau- 
tiful, when they struggle through among the stone- 
pines. There are no such stone-pines here as those at 
this Villa, and there cannot be anywhere a tree more 
beautiful than the stone-pine ; no wonder Theodore 



i 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 



171 



Parker, when he saw them, said, ^' Let one be set ovei 
my grave." A stem straight as a mast, ap, up, into 
the air ; then a sudden outstretcliing of fairy-hke fin- 
gers and arms wliich hold up a canopy of the darkest 
and vividest green ; — a great platform it becomes in 
some of them, from which another magic company of 
slender fingers holds up a second and then a third or 
fourth canopy. So slender are these arms, that from a 
great distance you do not see them, only the soft, dark, 
mysterious canopies against the sky, and below, the 
one shaft which rests in the ground ; that is a stone- 
pine ! Closer, you see that the needles are set thick 
and firm on the stems, and point up ; and that they are 
like our soft-pines at home, only suddenly seized with a 
heavenward purpose. So, like all other things witb 
heavenward purposes, they make themselves seen 
everywhere, and everybody soon learns their places. 

There is one stone-pine, all alone, on Mount Mario. 
Years ago, some Englishman paid a large sum of money 
to have it left there undisturbed forever. In every 
view of Rome stands out that one stone-pine. You 
remember I told you we had one grand one in full 
sight from our parlor windows ; the Barberini Palace 
stands in line with it, and seems so much less a thing ! 
I shall see the pine always, but I can't even remember 
now exactly how the palace looks. All this in paren- 
thesis ! Dear me ! shall I ever send you seven days at 
once ? 

When I first saw the open meadow on the right 
hand of this broad road, where I left you a page back, 
it was dotted here and there with bright spots of pur- 
ple, so bright they looked almost like red. " 0, what are 
they ? what are they ? " said I. '^ Only anemones," said 

S , quietly. How soon I knelt at the feet of one! 

I have it yet, — my first Italian anemone. It was not 
unlike an ox-eye daisy in shape, but vivid purple, and 
the petals were larger. Then I found two other kinds, — 
one white, and one pale yellow, — next, a painted crocus, 



172 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 

and then there was no time to look for more, for the 
sun was on the wrong side of the middle sky, and 
there were yet more than two miles to go in these won- 
derful pleasure-grounds. Everybody was there : sev- 
eral sets of Catholic boys with their priests at their 
heads ; some in long scarlet gowns, some in black with 
stove-pipe hats. These last were really running and 
playing, and it looked about as droll as it would to see 
the Judges of the Supreme Court kicking up their 
heels ! The red ones wound about among the trees, 
p,nd shot out their gleams of color at unexpected places, 
BO brilliantly that I was very glad they had all joined 
that particular shade of Catholicism if they could n't 
be Protestants ! There was a farm-house with a tiled 
roof, and sheds in a good deal of disorder, and a barn 
full of hay, all of which we saw, because the barn was 
only a roof on eight stone pillars, and the hay all bul- 
ging out for its own wall ! This was so picturesque 
that you could not help suspecting it of having been 
done on purpose, instead of because the climate is so 
mild. Then there was a garden, — a perfect specimen, 
they say, of the ideal Italian garden, — a flat square, laid 
out in the most absurd little shapes and strips, edged 
with green. They looked like the first pages in Euclid, 
or still more like a cook's table after the doughnuts 
have been all cut out, and the corners and bits of the 
dough left. How I laughed ! It was the most ridicu- 
lous thing for a thing that meant to be fine ! I can't 
imagine anything but small caricature puppets of 
flowers growing in it. This is the only thing in the 
grounds of the Pamfili Doria Yilla which is not en- 
chantingly beautiful ! But I must not say another word 
about this Villa, except that, besides all I have told 
you, it has old tombs and columbaria, and fountains 
and greenhouses, and a little church, and a little monu- 
mental temple to the French soldiers killed in 1849, 
and a casino, and more violets than there are in all the 
rest of Rome put together ! And here endeth Friday. 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 173 

On Sunday we went to church at San Pietro in 
Montorio. We did n't hear much of a sermon, to be 
sure, nor stay through the services, because the church 
was very cold. But we made up for it by going into 
the cloister of the convent adjoining, and going into 
the little temple which somebody built over the very 
spot on which Peter was crucified. You don't doubt 
about that spot, do you ? What is the use ? and then 
wait till you hear the circumstantial evidence, i. e., we 
saw the very hole in which the cross rested ! What 
more could one have ! It is in a crypt (that is Roman 
Catholic short for a dark, damp cellar) under the tem- 
ple, and there is an iron grating over the hole, and a 
sacred lamp perpetually burning in it. The old monk 
who showed us in had a long stick, hollow at one end, 
which he poked down and twisted round and round a 
few times at the bottom of the hole, and brought it up 
full of sacred earth, and then held it out to m^e, just as 
butter-men hold out to you the samples of their butter 
from the bottom of the tub. I realized afterwards 
that I ought to have taken the earth and carried it 
away as a relic ; but I only stared at it, and him and 
said nothing, and he put it back again with a sigh. 
However, he hked our franc just as well as if we had 
been Christians. 

The cloister was the most shut-up spot I ever saw : 
high walls, brick and stone pavement ; only the sky for 
relief, and that looked so far off it would very soon 
have discouraged you more than it would have com- 
forted you, if you had been shut up there ; in the mid- 
dle, the cold, white, still, round temple with a dome, 
and a row of gray pillars around it. I thought it very 
beautiful, and was quite surprised to find it one of the 
things set down in Murray as proper to be admired. 
A few httle weeds were struggling up between the 
stones in this cloister, and I thought if we did not 
escape pretty soon I should find my Picciola. The 
poor monk looked wistfully after us as he let us out 



174 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 



I suppose he goes out too when he hkes, but that can't 
make much difference if you know you must go back 
at night. 0, I long to get out of hearing of the clank 
of these chains ! 

This church and convent stand on the top of one of 
the highest hills ; behind the church, a few rods farther on 
the road, is the fountain Paolina, — such an ugly thing ; 
all but the water, which is beautiful and makes you 
leap about to look at it, — three great streams rushing 
out of a wall into a semicircular basin ; while the wall 
and the basin and every head and corner and post are 
so ugly, it only shows what water is, that it can be 
so beautiful in spite of them. Some pope — a Paul, I 
suppose — made the fountain more than two hundred 
years ago ; that is quite modern here, in fact, a mere 
thing of yesterday. The water comes all the way from 
the lake of Bracciano, and after this one brief minute 
of jolhty and beauty plunges down into the city, and 
does — what do you think ? — turns all the flour-mills ! 
How it must chafe when it remembers its frolic in 
the pope's fountain, to which it can never, never get 
back! 

From the plateau in front of this fountain, and in 
front of the church, is a grand view of Rome, — the en- 
tire campagna and the mountains. It was so warn» 
that we sat down on the grass and looked and looked. 
The gay Eoman people were flocking up and down, 
keeping their out-of-doors Sunday. Poor souls, it is 
no wonder this becomes part of their religion ! Three 
women sat in a group by the roadside, with huge piles 
of some sort of salad, which they were getting ready 
for market. They ate almost more than they put into 
the basket ; munch, munch, munch, — away they ate 
and talked, and talked and ate, and laughed, as if clear, 
cold, raw spinach were the most delicious thing in the 
world. Before we went home, we took a turn in the 
Coliseum, which was sunny, and had more flowers in it 
than on Friday ; from the topmost pinnacle they brought 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 175 

down asphodel to me, and when I saw that, I was sorry 
I had been so unsocial as to choose sitting alone in my 
old arch, with my feet in the southernwood bush, rather 
than climbing up with them. And here is the end of 
the fourth lesson. 

Now Monday can be told in few words, because it 
is only the Villa Pamfili Doria over again. We went 
early and we stayed so late that we were half sure we 
should wake up with fever the next morning ; and all 
that time we were picking anemones and lovely green 
things to make into bouquets to throw at the Carnival 
on Tuesday. Yes, absolutely to throw anemones at 
the Carnival ! Now that it is over, I see that it par- 
took of the nature of sacrilege, but at the time it 
seemed to me wise and good. 0, such a basketful as 
I brought home ! and the next morning I spent two 
hours and a half tying them up into lovely wild-looking 
bunches ; snowdrops mixed with them, and great ivy- 
leaves set round like a bouquet-holder. I felt afraid I 
had left no anemones for anybody else, and thought I 
had enough to make at least a dozen bouquets, and, 
after all, I had only seven ! Then I had a basket full 
of other flowers, and I had a white cape trimmed with 

purple, and a fine wire mask, — and L had a white 

cape trimmed with blue, and a wire mask, and a big 
basket of flowers ; and Tuesday afternoon we set out 
with Marianina, our beautiful little serving-maid, bright 
and early, after lunch, for the Carnival. You must 

know that all this week Miss S and I had been the 

owners of half a balcony on the Corso, and L had 

been the owner of a seat in a fine balcony with other 
friends, and yet we had been only twice to look on, 
and found the whole thing so stupid, and the horse-race 
so cruel, that we did not care to go again. But at the 
last minute I was seized with a sudden desire to enter 
into it wildly for an hour or two on the last day, and 
see if I could by clear, sheer force of will compel my- 
self to be amused ! Would you believe it ? m less 



176 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 

than ten minutes after I took my stand on that balcony, 
and spread my flowers out before me, and began to 
pelt people, I was just as excited as if I had been the 
granddaughter of Julius Caesar himself! I hit every- 
body I aimed at, and I caught every bouquet that was 
thrown at me, and I worked for three hours harder 
than I ever worked anywhere except in Dio Lewis's 
gymnasium ! It sounds silly. I am half ashamed to tell 
of it, except that it would be a pity not to let you have 
the laugh at me, and you can't laugh harder than I 
do to think of it ; for a woman of — well, of my age ! 
to be heartily amused for two solid hours throwing 
bouquets to a crowd, and bemg pelted back by bou- 
quets and sugar-plums ! it sounds like a sharp, short 
attack of being crazy. But I did it. Some of the 
bonbons were very pretty, but I threw them all down 
again to other people. My anemones, though, I did not 
shower down promiscuously, you may be very sure; 
our balcony was low enough for us to see the faces of 
the people perfectly, and I threw anemones to none 
exceptmg those who looked as if they knew the differ- 
ence between anemones and miserable bought flowers 
on wireSo Then, when it grew dark, everybody lit 
candles, and we had a few minutes' fun with those. 
The people from below threw bouquets and hit them 
and put them out, and the people from above knocked 
them out of your hands, and the people from the next 
balcony switched them out with their handkerchiefs , 
and everybody screamed out, " Senza moccoli, senza 
moccoli," and as you looked up and down the Corso, 
the dancing lights were like a shower of stars blown 
about in the wind. But this lasted only a little while, 
and few people in the street had candles ; so that it 
was quite unlike what it used to be in old times. In 
fact, the whole thing from beginning to end has been 
no carnival at all, they say. The Romans do not 
choose to be amused any longer. There are too many 
sons in prison, tpo many waiting for one more chance 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRA VELLER. 



177 



to fight; a hairdresser said to L one night in a 

half-frightened whisper, when she asked him why the 
Eomans did not give themselves up to the Carnival as 
they used, " The whole city is in anger, miss ! " Even 
in the little contact which we have with the Romans 
we see smoulderings of the fire. I can't help wish- 
ing they would wait till this mild, gentle, good old 
Pius is peacefully put away under (or in) his sarcopha- 
gus. He cannot live long ; I do not want him to be 
disturbed. After that, I could stay and fight myself to 
set this poor people free. 

Well, that w^as the end of the Carnival ; we left a 
dozen great bouquets in our balcony, and Marianina 
lugged home a few of the best ones which I thought 
might possibly do to take to pieces in the morning, 
and rearrange. Alas ! in the morning the poor things 
showed what they had been through. The history of 
one bouquet through an afternoon of the Carnival 
would be a strange record. I do not doubt that some- 
times the same bouquet goes through thousands of 
hands. Some of them had live canaries tied on them. 
That seemed to me even more cruel than the goading 
the poor horses for the race, which is a bit of cruelty 
of hneal descent from the days of the Griadiators. 

Now I have made these days so long, that of the 
next one 1 can tell you nothing, except that it was 
just as sunshiny and warm as the rest, and we went 
to another villa, — the Villa Wolkonsky. Here are old 
Roman aqueducts, covered with ivies whose stems are 
larger than my wrist, and which branch and spread 
like trees ! And here is an old tomb, which in the 
time of Nero one Mr. Cladius built for himself in a 
fine, conspicuous situation, as he supposed, and put his 
family names on the front; but now his tomb door is 
many feet underground, and the curious few go down 
into his tomb, and tumble about the bones of his kin- 
dred as much as they like. A Russian princess owns 
this villa, but has not hved in it for five years; so in 
8* I. 



1-78 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 

what is she better, said we, than American princesses 
who own no viila? 

What do you think of this for a week ? We don't 
hve quite so fj^st every week, but then we might, if 
it never rained, and if we were never tired; so the 
Roman calendai becomes, you see, quite another thing 
when you couni> the days in Rome. In spite of it all, 
however, I am liankering after a hill country with only 
its own legitimate dead about! Not that I mean to re- 
flect on the fami ly records of the Caesars and Antonines ; 
but I think it cbokes the air a little too much to dig 
down into so many layers of sepulchre. Sufficient 
unto a century is the dead thereof I shall like Switzer- 
land better than Rome, and I shall say a new kind of 
prayer at night when I get into a country where I can 
go to bed once more with my window wide open. 

Grood by now, dear souls, one and all. Tell me all 
the smallest things you do, and keep a little green spot 
in your every-day hearts for me. 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, i^g 



Rome, March 15, 1869. 

DEAR PEOPLE: I have been to an exhibition 
of delegates from Babel. Don't think this is a 
figure of speech, it is naked truth ; the other name for 
it, though, IS the Exhibition of the College of the Pro- 
paganda. 

the wily wisdom of this Romish Church ! the fine- 
ness of the web they spin 1 Nothing ever showed it to 
me like these thirty tongues, — ■ Hindostanee and several 
other dialects of India, Arabic, G-reek, Persian, He- 
brew, Chaldaic, Syriac, Armenian, Curdo, TelegunesQ, 
Canarese, Coptic, Latin, French, Celtic, Danish, Illyri- 
an, Bulgarian, Albanian, and I don't know how many 
more. But first I will tell you how we got there, and 
I might as well say here, that about this price has 
to be paid for everything you see and hear in this city. 
The exercises were to begin at half past two , we ar- 
rived at the door at quarter past one. Already a few 
determined spirits had taken their stand close to the 
great padded curtain to make sure of being first in. 
Soon there was a solid phalanx that could have bat- 
tered the door down if they had gone at it head fore- 
most. I never saw the water let on at a dam ; but I 
have seen women let in at these Romish doors, and it 
must be pretty much the same thing. Perhaps you 
think you are a free agent in such a crowd ; anything 
but that; you feel as if you were nothing but one 
great elbow that somebody else shoved with ! Each 
time I think I will never go again, but you can't stay 
away. 

It was a very narrow passage-way into wliich we 
were let by the opening of the first door this day. 



i8o 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 



Were we free now ? no, by no means ; at the 
other end of this passage another door. In it one of 
the Swiss G-uards, red and yellow and big with his 
towering plume past him but two could go at once ; 
first come, first served. Then such pushing! such 
elbowing ! disagreeable, insufferable, only that you 
have to suffer it ; and as if this were not enough, up 
comes one of the authorities, and drags through, by 
main force, two women who were at the rear end of 
the crowd, came late, and had no sort of right to a seat 
at all : women at the front remonstrate ; man coolly 
says, ^^If you don't let these ladies pass, you sha'n't 
come in yourselves, that 's all," and jerks them along. 

A V and L C get in several shots 

before Miss H and I. When we are handed into 

the small gallery, there they sit, stowed each in her ap- 
pointed chair, A in the first row, L on the 

third, and I am mounted to the fourth. This gallery 
is like a little section of the family circle in our thea- 
tres ; it will hold perhaps forty, — that is all, and 
there is no other place ; so, instead of grumbling, 
you begin to thank your stars you got in at all. 
Still the men pass the women along twos by twos, 
and don't the last couples look black who have to 
climb up to the top seats ? They might as well be in 
St. Peter's for all they can see or hear of what is go- 
ing on in the hall below, down into which we look. 
It is half filled with the Propaganda boys facing the 
gallery ; a great sea of black cloth with gleams of red 
lining, and a featureless white face once in so often, — 
that is how they looked. 

Then there were three fiery blotches on the front 
seat, cardinals' caps and cloaks of hottest red ; behind 
them, the next shade of dignity and righteousness, the 
monsignori, all purple (half mourning, I suppose, be- 
cause they are not cardinals) ; then came spectators, 
chiefly priests and monks ; in two balconies, opposite 
each other, the music, — the leader had gray hair, and 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRA VELLER. 



I«l 



held a violin under one arm all the while he beat time 
with his baton ; it was droll to see him leaning out of 
his balcony, and gesticulating with both arms to the 
other half of his orchestra way off on the other side of 
the hall. I forgot to Hsten to what they played, but 
it w^as very fine. Then there were windows opening 
from an outside gallery into the hall, and at all these 
windows stood the women who could n't get seats. 
Every year there are fights at these windows ; no- 
where, they say, are there such fights seen as at these 
ceremonies at the Propaganda, — there is so little room 
and so much interest. 

P and N saw a shocking scrimmage there 

to-day ; in fact, that was one reason they came away, 

N remarking in an audible tone that she came to 

hear the young men speak, but she had heard nothing 
but quarrelling and fighting, and she should not stay to 
hear any more. Fancy hearing w^ell-dressed women, 
who can speak French and Italian and English, and 
perhaps G-erman, abusing each other face to face in a 
public crowd. 

'' Madam, it is evident you are no lady." 

'' Madam, I will call the police and have you taken 
out." 

Well, we all got our breaths, and the boys had theirs 
beforehand, and it began. Nobody spoke more than 
five minutes; those who could, sang at the end of 
their little '' piece " a few lines of what I presumed to 
be a national air. Some of them were very wild and 
pathetic; most of the Asiatic ones reminded me of the 
songs of the sailors at sea. It was a great joke that 
when the " Inglese " came we could not understand it 
much more than we had the Persian. It was spoken 
by ^' Signer Giacomo Burns," of Glasgow, and, so far as 
I did comprehend it, I must say it was anything but 
shrewd or Scotch-like in its ideas. I forgot to tell you 
that we all had had given to us a pamphlet programme 
of the exercises, in which was printed each speech, in 



1 82 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 

Italian, with the man's name and country below it. 
Some of these brought up strange pictures just by their 
very look. '^ Signer Michell Chenaja di Yelchife Nella 
Mesopotamia," " Signer G-ulielmo Samba dell Isola di 
S. Maria Nella Senegambia." Ah, he was the man 
that it would have warmed your heart to hear I Black 
as the ace of spades, a great, full voice like a river, and 
the presence and the motion of an orator; how they 
clapped and clapped and clapped him ! He wore gold 
glasses, and a side light kept flashing on them, making 
his eyes look like yellow topazes at the distance from 
which I looked at him. He sang an African song 
which was so exactly like a plantation " break-down," 
that I began to think the whole scene was a weird 
dream ; the candles, the scarlet, the fresco, the Swiss 
Guards, the erect black man in his solemn black gown, 
and out of his mouth coming these ludicrous " Hi-yi's." 
But I think he was the strongest man intellectually of 
all who spoke. I have observed him many times 
before, walking arm in arm with the white students. 
You hardly ever go out without meeting a procession 
of them taking their walk, and I have always been 
impressed by this man's face. How long before we 
shall be great enough in America to see such a thing 
in Yale or Harvard ? 

Everybody grew tired, but I did n't. Many went out, 
so that I finally clambered over and down till I was 
in the front seat. After the exercises were done we 
leaned over the railing and looked down. Up steps 
the guard, and says, ^' It is against orders for women to 
look over ! " I could n't see what more harm we could 
do to the poor men by looking over. We had been 
set up there in full sight for three hours, for them to 
look at and find out how nice we were ! But we turned 

meekly away, and A and I ran home alone 

through the Due Macelli and past the Capo la Casa, 
through the Via Felice ; then she to the Via Sistina 
and I to the Via Quattro Fontane, and it was quite too 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 183 

dark, but nobody troubled us. Do you like the sound 
of the names of the places where we walk ? I do. If 
one could only walk more ! But these torturing pave- 
ments ! Somebody said in the " Pall Mall," the other 
day, that a pilgrimage over the pavements of Eome 
without peas in your shoes was quite enough to atone 
for most sins. Sometimes I think one hour of it has 
cleared my scot ! 0, how they twist you and turn 
you ! Everybody hobbles, nobody walks. 

The next day we drove out to Santa Maria Navicella, 
one of the oldest churches in Rome, way out and up 
on the Cselian Hill. We went through lovely old lanes, 
walled up high on each side, with ivies and vines of all 
sorts ; then under the arch of Dolabella — did you 
know him ? — and then we came to the church. We 
knew it by the great marble boat in front of it, — solid 
marble, gray and black, and split in the middle; a 
boar's head on the prow, much chipped on the edges, 
and with fools' names scribbled over it, — chiefly in 
English, I am sorry to say. Leo X. made this one; 
there used to be a much older one, which came to grief, 
and this is the model of it. I am sure all the little 
boys on the C^lian Hill for centuries have wished they 
had it. 

In the church were thirty men mumbling off a sort 
of lay service, and a slipshod monk at the altar, and the 

two Misses , nice old maids from Massachusetts, 

patting about among the pillars. Over the tribune — 
that means the round place at the end, on which the 
altar stands — were such odd mosaics, you laughed 
before you knew it ; Christ and the Apostles and the 
Angels all put in little bits of marble, and looking much 
more as if they came from the court of Japan than the 
kingdom of heaven ; in the ninth century they were 
stuck up there, and I suppose they will stay forever. 
Next we went to San Stefano Rotondo. This is still 
queerer and older ; used to be part of a meat-market 
in Nero's time. In the court-yard we saw an old well, 



1 84 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 

which somehow reminded me of getting ice from the 
butcher's shop next door, at home. 

The church is just one huge round room, high and 
gloomy and bare, with a row of columns, and what 
do you think for li*escoes ? — all the possible and impos- 
sible martyrdoms ! panel after panel, the whole dreary 
circuit ; and you get into such a horrible sort of spell 
that you can't help going on from one to another, till 
at last you feel as if you had been head-executioner to 
the Inquisition for a hundred years, and would have 
to chop off heads, and broil people on gridirons, like a 
kind of Wandering Jew, till the end of time ! 

Under each picture is a slab with a Latin inscription 
telling you who did it, to whom, where and when, 
and all about it, and you spell these out with a dim 
sense of finding out that it is all a fancy sketch. This is 
all there is to this church, except some grotesque mo- 
saics in the tribune done in the seventh century, two big 
saints and a little Saviour, and in the vestibule a great 
marble chair in which St. Gregory sat and read his 
'' Fourth Homily." I hope you don't think I know who 
he was, or what his Fourth Homily was about. All I 
know is, that, if the Homily were long, the Saint must 
have grown uncommon stiff and cold. 

Monday we went all over the Quirinal Palace, — 
twenty-six rooms of it at least, all they show ; I dare say 
they keep twenty-six more locked up. Such a dreary 
place as it is! the poor lonely Pope ! I hope the 
Vatican is better. Marble floors, or else inlaid wood ; 
walls marble half-way up, and never stopping; such 
distant ceilings ; many of the walls hung with crimson 
damask, which looked as if it had been frozen, spite of 
its red ; chairs in nearly all the rooms of solid wood, 
some of them black walnut, but some painted in imi- 
tations of marble and malachite, all with Pius IX. 
on the front, the poor garde nohile, and anybody else 
who lives there, must have a hard time sitting on them ; 
crucifixes in every room, and in several of the state 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 185 

rooms a throne with a canopy over it. I kept thinking 
the Pope had run off with my beggar, and lucky enough 
iie would be if he had ! 

We saw his bedroom, all crimson and gilt, but quite 
plain ; that and the study were the only rooms which 
looked small enough to live in ; he has a study table, 
like any other man, with a place in the middle to put 
his legs under. I sat down in the chair, and put my 
heretic feet on his damask footstool, where nobody 
saw me. I should like to write one of my encyclicals 
there. 

But the spittoons ! Ha ! that pleased me ! I hope 
somebody will tell Mr. Dickens ; I never saw so many in 
a hotel in America. They are in almost every room, but 
their purpose is cunningly hid in this fashion : the box 
has a lid, — it is all of wood, — and a broad band like a 
bell-pull fastened to this lid, and then going up to a 
sort of high post, which is attached to the box, and the 
whole thing looks rather ornamental, and it was n't till 
after some time I smelt out the trick; then I slipped 
back into the Pope's study, and I hfted up the very one 
by his sacred chair, and sure enough there it was, sand 
and all, a spittoon ! The custode n^ver missed me, but I 
wonder what he would have said if he had caught me 
at it. 

A dear honest old priest from the country was taken 
round at the same time with us, and his tender ado- 
ration of everything was pathetic to see ; he went on 
tiptoe round the most sacred spots, and talked under 
his breath. The custode would speak English with 
us, and we could hardly understand a word he said ; 
but we were ashamed to ask him to speak in Italian, 
for fear we should understand still less. 

The Pope's private chapel was the only homehke- 
looking place there ; that was really cosey, if it is proper 
to say such a thing of a room with arches on each side 
and a high dome, all one mass of gilt and carving 
and fresco ; but it really did look comfortable;, it was 



1 85 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 

so small in comparison with the great giant caverns 
we had been through. In this chapel is a Gruido, — 
The Annunciation. The Virgin is a good-looking wo- 
man in a great blue gown, and the Angel is another 
good-looking woman in as much more yellow gown, 
and with the things which artists have agreed among 
themselves to call wings growing out of her shoulders. 

Tuesday was the day for the Villa Albani. I have 
told you about the Villa Pamfili Doria. That is my love, 
no other villa will wean me ; but the Villa Albani has 
a great collection of statues and pictures. 1 sat on the 
balcony all the afternoon, and looked at the view : Al- 
ban hills all in shadow, deep blue ; Monte Gennaro also 
in deep shadow, but the whole long range of the Sa- 
bine Hills between, one kaleidoscope of light and shade ; 
the clouds lay low and the sun was bright, — cloud 
effects here are rare, for the sky is usually clear, too 
clear for the beauty of the landscape. I shall never 
forget the Sabine Hills that afternoon. Among the 
statues was one old Bacchus that I think I should like 
to have come to supper. 

Wednesday I drove about all day with P , who 

was doing last errands before starting for Sicily. It 
always seems more unreal to do shopping in Rome than 
anything else; to stop in one of these old streets at a 
glove-cleaning place seems such a flagrant violation of 
unities ; after the errands were done, we went to the 
Coliseum for our good-by, and sat there till the sun 
looked in in level beams, it was so low. The wallflower 
is blazing out now from all the high places which you can- 
not reach, — such great swinging masses of vivid yellow, 
it is more than human nature can bear to see it, and 
the larks sing among it like divine flutes. While we 
sat there, some poor working women w^alked through, 
and all knelt and kissed the great cross in the centre, — 
to kiss that cross makes you free for a certain number of 
years from Purgatory, — after them came two priests, 
and took off their great flapping hats and kissed it too. 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 187 

Thursday we went to the Ludovisi Yilla ; that is 
really a villa which one could go into a rhapsody over 
if one had not sworn allegiance to the Pamfili Doria. 
0, that reminds me I have not told you that in the 
Pamfili Doria the real anemones are out now, and on 
Friday, the 19th, we went there, and I picked a great 
basket full. The meadows were literally covered; we 
trod them down, we could not help it ; I could have 
cried ; I did not dare to look where I had walked ; 
they are white, they are buff, they are scarlet, they are 
crimson, they are lavender, they are pink, they are 
purple, they are white with purple veins, white with 
pink tips, buff with dark crimson base, buff with pur- 
ple, and besides all these many more ! Of course you 
don't believe me ; I should n't if anybody told me. 
They are like a small single poppy, made a little more 
neatly, and the leaves pointed a little and setting up in 
a cup shape ; they are all sizes, from a tiny buttercup 
to a good genuine poppy size ; they are close to the 
ground, or they get up as high as six or eight inches on 
their stalks ; and all the world can go two days a week 
to this villa and pick all they want, and, whatever else 
the house of Doria does or does not, that is a princely 
bit of good-fellowship with the world, is n't it ? Now 
to go back to Ludovisi, it was there that I had your 
last letter. We had found it at the bankers on our way, 
and I carried it in my pocket through great avenues of 
ilexes, walks with hedges of box and laurel twenty feet 
high, past a bird-cage as big as a small house, with a 
wire dome, and a big tree growing under it, and a foun- 
tain at the foot of the tree, and a hundred canaries 
doing as they liked there, which was chiefly to sing 
and to spatter; past statues of Hercules and all the 
other old heroes, and a grand head of Juno ; past great 
frescoed rooms where are an Aurora by Guercino and 
a Night by somebody else, both of which are lovely 
in photograph, and not a bit lovely in plaster, — way 
up and up to the third floor of the casino and out on 



l88 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 

tlie terrace, where we sat down with our backs to the 
sun and our faces to Soracte, and I read your letter. 

L read one from her brother, and we said no word 

to each other for an hour. Then we walked about and 
picked violets which should be called Tyrian, they are 
so purple. All of a sudden there came a dark cloud 
in the midst of the blue of the sunshine, and without 
one second's warning a sharp shower. It really seemed 
as though some mischievous little heavenly boy must 
be doing it with squirt-guns, for the sun shone as bright- 
ly as ever, and at first we could not even see the cloud, 
it was so little a tree hid it ; but we had to run all the 
same as if it had been big, and we got wet, too, before 
we could reach our carriage, and that was the end of 
that day's sight-seeing. And that must be the end of 
this letter. 

We long for the country. Albano gleams out cool 
and white high on the hillside only twelve miles 
away, and beckons and lures like a magic strain of 
music in the distance. Perhaps my next letter will be 
from that fairy spoto Farewell. 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRA VELLER, 



i8g 



Venice, Sunday p. M., May 16, 1869. 

DEAR PEOPLE : We came away. It was harder 
than you could imagine. Rome is a siren of sirens. 
It was so hot that we could scarcely breathe from 
ten o'clock till four, and there was nothing to eat ex- 
cept ices and strawberries with no flavor to them, but 
we clung to the very stones of that city. I went in 
from the beloved Albano on Friday, the 7th, supposing 
that we should set out for Venice on the following 

Tuesday ; but P and N were not ready, and 

we did not get off until Thursday. At first when they 
told me this I said, "I will go directly back to Albano. 
I will never stay in this ill-odored oven five days ! " 
But I stayed, and when Wednesday came I privately 
hoped that some dresses, or marbles, or pictures would 
not come home at the last minute, so that we should 
be kept a day or two longer. There are still so many 
things in Rome that I have not seen. I feel as if I had 
made only a beginning, though I have been there more 
than four months ; in those five last days, however, I 
made good use of the time ; if I had been as indus- 
trious all winter, I should have accomplished more. 
Among other things I did, which had been inexplicably 
postponed in the winter, was the '' Palace of the C^sars." 
1 could not tell how many times the day had been set 
to go there. Once, as I wrote you, I stood at the gate, 
with the whole Archaeological Society at my back, and 
could not get in. I had grown superstitious about it ; 
but at last I really did get in, and then, my country- 
men and women, what a fall was there! I had all 
along anticipated seeing ruins grander than any other 
except the Coliseum. As I saw them from the distance 



I go ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 

they looked imposing, and looked wild and overgrown, 
like the Baths of Caracalla, and as all ruins ought to look. 
But what do you think you see when the gate is first 
opened? (It is owned, you must know, by Napoleon, 
sold to him for $40,000 by the King of Naples, "that 
very stoopid young man," as Signer L said, in tell- 
ing me about it, " for $40,000 this whole grand ruin; 
and the water privilege alone is worth more than that." 
So the Emperor has walled it in, and is carrying on 
excavations in a masterly manner, and the public only 

go in on Thursdays ; but I went in with Signer L , 

who has always the right to go anywhere on any day, 
so far as we can discover ; and we went on a Satur- 
day.) When the gate is opened, you see a broad walk 
and a sort of cq/e-like building, and very much land- 
scape garden, nice little beds, such as you might see in 
Brooklyn or Springfield, bushels of roses, and white 
thorn and box borders ; if you are like me, you stand 
stock-still and burst out laughing, and say, " Where is 
the Palace of the Caesars ? " and then your archseolo- 
gist leads you along, up and up, into great spaces, 
some of them floored with mosaic, some of them bare 
earth, but all cleaner and more swept and garnished 
and scrubbed than any old maid's parlor you ever saw ; 
great columns set here and there, and grand bits of 
marble, fragments of acanthus, and legs and arms, etc., 
such as you see always in the ruins of Eome ; but here 
they are all set by so neatly that, upon my word, you 
don't feel as if they were ever in any other place in 
their lives. Then, as I say (if you are hke me), you 
laugh still more, in fact, you get positively irreverent ; 
and you look round, expecting to see old women with 
pails and mops in every corner, and there is nobody in 
sight, except workmen wheeling away things in wheel- 
barrows, and you think they must be carrying off the 
old women with pails and mops, for there does not 
seem to be anything else to carry off! All this time the 
archaeologist is delivering a little lecture by your side; 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, igi 

how this is the old audience chamber, and this was the 
dining-room, and this circular mosaic at the end is the 
place where the emperors used to sit, — and very likely 
Ucj if they ever got "under the table," — and this is 
the bath-room, and this is the academy where every 
day a poet read a poem, or a philosopher or historian 
an essay, before the emperor; and at last the archaeolo- 
gist sees that you are shaking with laughter, and, 
having previously found you more than sentimental 
enough on other occasions over other ruins, he thinks 
YOU are laughing at his English, and stops short and 
says, " What arc you doing ? what have you the mat- 
ter?" And then you, that is I, sink down into a 
thicket of purple foxglove, and begin to sneeze violent- 
ly (for rose-cold happens in these days, because Italy 
is one great garden in blossom). Then I try to ex- 
plain that I think it the funniest thing in life to see 
a ruin so scrubbed up and put in such horribly good 
order; that there is such an eminently French look 
about it all, that it seems to belong to the Rue St. Ho- 
nore, and to have nothing whatever to do with Rome 
either ancient or modern; and that I very much 
doubt if ever an emperor set his foot* in it! Then the 
archaeologist, being the gentlest little soul in the world, 
loses his temper, and says, " You are very provokking " ; 
and that completes my nervous amusement, and all is 
" up " for that day. However, when I was fairly under- 
ground, walking along an old street, many feet beneath 
the landscape garden, and looking into stuccoed room 
after room, and up steep stone staircases, on one of 
which it seems to me quite probable that Caligula was 
killed, I found my usual faith and reverence reviving, 
and patched up a sort of truce with my archaeologist. 
But I shall never forget the comical effect of that 
first look at the palace of the Caesars. 

Among other good things of those last days in Rome 
was an illumination of the Yenus of the Capitol: day- 
time toe ! It happened on this wise. We went to the 



192 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 

room at just that one minute of noon, when the sun 
flooded in through the upper panes of the window on 
the right, and ht up the whole statue with a positively 
supernatural color. Even the custode exclaimed he had 
never, in all the years before, happened to hit that pre- 
cise moment and such a sun. The face smiled, and the 
right arm trembled a little as the sunlight flickered 
over it. We stood breathless and silent, and it would 
not have surprised us in that instant to have heard a 
voice from the lips. On the left of the Venus stands 
a dear little girl in marble, looking Uke anybody's little 
girl in the next street, only that her gown is all one 
great square piece of something gathered up in what 
were folds in those days, but would look uncommonly 
bunchy, I think, if we were to try them now. She is 
holding a little bird up in her arms, to keep it safe from 
a snake which stretches up behind to reach it. We 
wanted to wait till the sun had come to the little girl's 
head, but we had not time ; so we ran to take one 
more look at the black marble Centaurs, and the In- 
fant Hercules, and then went home. 

At the last, the leaving Rome was quite picturesque. 
We went at night ; for of the two evils, to ride all 
night seemed less than to get up at 4 a. m. and ride 
all day in the heat. Poor little Marianina had haunted 
the hotel all day ; running in and out to see if I did 
not want something done, and finally standing in the 
dining-room door while we took our tea, and looking 
at me with the piteous eyes of a dumb animal. Every 
now and then she would say, " Iddio mio ! Iddio mio ! 
O signora mia ! " till I could not stand it, and had fair- 
ly to pretend to be stern, and send her off. I said to 
her though, ^^ If I were rich, Marianina, I would take 
you with me." " 0, but you are rich, signora mia! " 
she said, with the tears in her eyes. Poor soul, I think 
nobody has ever been very kind to her before, and this 
one month with me (with good wages and nothing to 
do ! ) has been the one festa of her life. Griovanrii, the 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 1^3 

girls' old courier, went with us to the station, and 
Marianina, who had insisted on carrying my bundle 
and bag, appeared with a cousin to carry the bun- 
dle ; so we filed up past the little garden and the sol- 
diers and out among the fire-flies, quite a procession. 
Marianina knelt on the step of the car till the bell 
struck and the guard pulled her off; then she kissed 
our hands and walked slowly away, looking over her 
shoulder at the guard out of one eye, and at me out of 
the other ! The guard said something to his fellow- 
guard about her beauty, and snapped the door, and 
we were off, — we three women, good friends, good 
travellers, — off for Venice, with Eome written on our 
hearts ! 

If there be any greater misery short of rheumatic 
fever than to ride all night in the cars. I do not know 
what it is. So long as there is daylight, and one can 
see that there are peace and dry land and homes and 
human beings to the right and left, railroad riding is 
bearable ; but the minute I am in the dark, every 
whistle sounds hke the shriek of fiends, every jolt and 
jar seem to me the wrenches of a rack on which I am 
being torn ; and when people sleep on either side of 
my misery, I am aggravated to that degreee that I am 
dangerous. Each time I spend such a night, I think I 
will never spend another, come what will ; but by the 
time the next occasion arrives, I buy my ticket, and go 
on board as docilely as the best sleeper among you. 
And I dare say, before I see you again, I shall have 
spent a month, all told, in night railroading. It seems 
to be considered the thing to do here. 

At Foligno the cocks crew, and the passengers got 
out and ate, and we could see what color the fields 
were. Then began a royal progress through a garden ; 
all the way to Ancona, four hours, nothing but wheat- 
fields and vineyards ; in the wheat-fields, scarlet pop- 
pies and purple foxglove, and bright blue something, I 
don't know what, but as we dashed by it looked like 

9 M 



194 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 

bachelor's-buttons flying off in the air. Under the 
vines, which were trained on trees, were such fields 
of crimson clover as you would not beheve in if I 
were to tell you about them. Fields of crimson pe- 
onies set close as they could stand would not be more 
crimson. In Ancona I found some peasant-women 
who had walked into town with huge loads of this 
clover on their heads, and were resting by the roadside. 
I jumped out of the carriage, and asked them for one 
of the flowers. 0, how brown and handsome the 
women were, and how they laughed when I broke off 
one blossom and laid it carefully in my book ! I shall 
slip a bit of it in this letter, and you can see for your- 
self what fields would look hke where such clover as 
this flowered in spikes three inches long ! We liked 
Ancona, but did not see so much of it as we should if 
we had not gone straight into our beds at 9 a. m. 
and slept till 1 p. m. ! It is enough to make an engi- 
neer officer's mouth water for a war, to see such hills 
and such fortifications. From Trajan's day till now it 
seems somebody or other has always been building 
forts there, and somebody else firing at them. No 
wonder. The very sight of the place is a temptation, 
and the build of it as much a proof of the divine 
intent of war, as flesh-teeth in animals. We saw Tra- 
jan's arch, and a statue to Cavour, and a cathedral up 
in the air at tiptop of hills and forts and town and all, 
and a gay-looking theatre where Faust was to be played 
that night, and ever so many nice shops with muslin 
waists and straw things, which we wanted to buy, and 
a man peddling boiled dinner round in a big iron pot in 
a handcart. Yes, really boiled beef and peas and pota- 
toes, and it smelled savorily ; and a poor ragged crea- 
ture came out of a forlorn house and bought a plateful, 
while we were looking on. Then we bundled into a 
little cockle-shell of a boat, we and our five trunks, 
and were rowed off to the steamer, where we found 
an American family at dinner in the cabin, as if they 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 195 

bad lived there all their lives, — a thin, yellow mamma, 
with tight hair, which savored of sewing- societies and 
rigid principles ; a papa who was all gray, grizzled good- 
nature ; and amiss who did Frencli for them both: and 
they had been on the Nile all winter, and were just 
from Corfu ; and were in Madeira the winter before ; 
and, dear me, for all that, how very inexperienced and 
uninformed they looked ! 

Almost as far as we could see the shores of Ancona, 
we could see the bright patches of the clover-fields. 
They gradually faded from crimson to claret, and then 
at last looked like dark woods in the diio distance. I 
remembered Mrs. Howe's " I stake my life on the 
red ! " Wonderful color, which makes such road for 
itself through space. 

Think of our not getting up in time to catch the first 
glimpse of Venice rising from the sea ! It was stupid, 
but we might as well own up ; we did n't do it. How- 
ever, it looked odd and unreal enough when we did 
get on deck. We were squeezing along in water that 
felt thick, — piles all about us, as much land as water, 
and not enough of either to make it seem like anything 
set down in geographies ; and the bell-towers and 
domes in sight, like a gray mirage against the sky. 
Somehow I could not feel as I expected to. Generally 
you don't, I find. I felt more like Mrs. Partington 
than like Rogers, or any other man of them all who 
has touched bottom in Venetian romance. If I had 
opened my mouth, I am afraid I should have exclaimed, 
[ike the worthy female above named : " Laws sakes 
alive ! What an awful freshet they must have had ! 
And what on airth are these poor people going to do, 
supposin' they can get there, which seems no ways 
likely ? " Then, when we began to be surrounded by 
the dismallest black craft I ever saw, uncanny enough 
to have come straight from the Styx, and I was told 
exultingly by my companions, " Tliere are the gondo- 
las 1 " I was still more '' taken down." I could n't 



X96 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 

say either that they looked unhke the photographs of 
them, and that was the most provokmg part of it. I 
can't tell you how comical and melancholy they looked 
to me that morning, — and look still, for that matter. 
The body of a hearse set down low in the middle of a 
gigantic peaked snow-shoe, the whole black and sticky, 
and stamped with sepulchral designs. It is an under- 
stood thing now, that I am not to be expected to '' ride 
in th^t kind of kerridge " again. Once I tried it, but 
I wriggled and stumbled out instantly, and told the 
girls if they were goirjg with me, that hearse-top must 
be taken off. Eain or shine, I will take my chance 
w^ith an umbrella. When this top is off, a gondola 
becomes the most fascinating of boats. I could glide 
about forever in them , and you have the feeling all 
the time here that the next minute the whole city may 
go under, and perhaps you can pick up a survivor or 
two. So it seems well to be on hand with your boat. 
I suppose I shall become accustomed to this miracle 
of a stone city at anchor. We are to stay a month, 
and I must begin to do something else besides try to 
look under the houses, which is all I have done yet. 
Even the floors seem to me to go up and down like the 
old " China " I came over in. If I were not an uncom- 
monly good sailor, I should be seasick all the time ; 
and when I am walking in what they call streets 
(Heaven save the mark ; they are just cracks in the 
walls, that is all : a big soldier and I nearly got wedged 
trying to pass each other in one yesterday, and I had 
on no hoop at all), I half expect to ^' slump through " 
at every step. As for the Doge's palace, that 's another 
blow ! It may be imposing; I suppose Euskin knows; 
but somehow it won't impose on me, and I can't get it 
to ! It looks low and undignified, and the " edging" 
at top is not half so good in effect as I have seen round 
summer-houses at home. And the windows are not 
in line, nor sufficiently out of line (like our dear old 
up-and-down windows m Rome) to be picturesque 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 197 

and the colonnades look to me very shoppy ; and there, 
you see, I am, and, like Martin Luther, " I can no 
more " ; and I suppose you will think there is no fun 
at all in having such an unappreciative friend in Ven- 
ice, especially if she does not know enough to keep 
quiet about the sacred things she is too ignorant to 
admire. I have been up and down the G-rand Canal 
twice, and seen more old palace fronts than I can count. 
They are fantastic and gorgeous, and it all looks Ara- 
bian Nights-ish; but I cannot make it look to me 
otherwise than overloaded and mixed. All the time I 
find myself recalling the stern simplicity and beauty 
and grandeur of arches and walls and churches in 
Eome, and Yenice seems to me tawdry. This is at 
end of the second day, however ; so it is premature. 
We have begun to read aloud the ^' Stones of Yenice," 
and we are going to be praise worthily conscientious in 
attention to all that Ruskin tells us is admirable ; so at 
the end of our month I may be as enthusiastic an ad- 
mirer of the city as he. But the one thing I expect to 
be made really happy by, and to bear away with me 
to keep the rest of my life, is the color of Titian. 
Michael Angelo is the god of shape; I think Titian 
must be of color ; and no wonder, when he fed on 
such sunsets. Last night, beside all else, we had a 
rainbow over the sunset. It broke up and floated 
about in pieces ; and the Doge's palace looked like am- 
ber in the yellow light ; and on the three great scarlet 
flagstaffs in St. Mark's were three huge flags, which 
floated from the tops of the staffs to the ground, — 
green and red and white, so that all things seemed 
turning to rainbow. 

We are most comfortably established at the Hotel 
Yittoria, not on the G-rand Canal, thank Heaven! 

When at first JST said that she did not dare to stay 

on the G-rand Canal, because she feared too much sea 
air, I was quite dismayed. But now I am thankful 
enough to have dry land ; that is^ a stone floor laid on 



198 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 

piles, on one side of our house. I look down from my 
window into one of the cracks called streets ; the people 
look as if they were being threaded into the Scriptural 
needle's eye, and a hand-organ looks like a barricade. 
Yesterday I threw down four soldi to a man who was 
grinding at one under my window, and made signs to 
him to go away, for I was almost frantic with the noise 
of seven different bells ringing at the same time. I am 
in mortal terror now to think of my indiscretion, for 
that man, having discovered the " vally of peace and 
quiet " to me, I presume will become a regular pen- 
sioner on my bounty for the rest of my stay. 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 199 



Venice, Wednesday, June 2, 1869. 

THERE is so much to tell you about here, that I 
see plainly my only way will be to keep a sort of 
journal, and if, so doing, I make my letter into a book, 
I hope enough of the color of the days will get into its 
pages to repay you for struggling through them. We 
finished up our May with a christening ! — Venetian 
twins, in the church of San Griovanni e Palo, called in 
the guide-book vernacular (if there be such a thing as 
vernacular for men who write guide-books, bless 
them !) '' the Westmmster Abbey of Venice." 

We had wandered about among the tombs of the 
Doges, and the statues of generals, and the altars and the 
candles, and the pictures and the scaffoldings, and the 
workmen and mortar, and the begging men and boys 
and old women, till we ■were perfectly exhctusted, and 
did not care whether Yenice ever had a Doge or not, 
or if the beggars died of starvation at our feet ; and 
we were just going off, when we saw a woman hurry- 
ing into the church with a glass box in her arms. 

P , who had seen them before, exclaimed, " Oh ! oh ! 

there is a baby to be baptized! " and we almost ran 
towards the woman. A baby indeed! there were two 
babies, rolled up tight, like mummies, to their very 
throats ; little knit caps on their heads, which were 
about as big and red as Baldwin apples, and rolled about 
from side to side as if the stems would n't last long. 
The box was perhaps a foot and a half or two feet long, 
and a foot high, — a wooden framework, with knobs at 
the corners like bedpost tops ; the sides of glass, and 
holes around the edges in the wood-work to let in the 
air. The babies were twins, and were just one day old I 



200 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 

The woman set the box down on a bench by the wall 
as indifferently as if it had been a bundle of old clothes, 
and walked away. There they lay, the two poor httle 
gasping things, all alone in this huge church, with effi- 
gies of dead Doges and great equestrian statues all about 
them. I never supposed anything so uncanny could hap- 
pen to one in the first forty-eight hours after getting into 
the world, even if one had the luck to land in Venice ! 

P and I stood and watched the poor little creatures ; 

they hardly seemed human, though their eyes were really 
bright and they were unusually wide-awake-looking 
babies for their time of life. One of them was quite 
uncomfortable, and gasped often as if it would cry if the 
bandages were not too tight ; the other, which had a 
red string in its cap, and by that token I thought was 
the older of the two, seemed to look upon the grimaces 
of his brother with positive philosophical scorn. He 
would look him steadily in the eye for a minute, and 
his mouth seemed quite pursed up with contempt for 
such babyishness. Presently the woman came back, 
and with her a priest, slouchy and unneat, with a pur- 
ple vestment slipped on over his old coat ; a little rag- 
ged boy carrying a c'andle ; and a stout handsome fellow, 
evidently a workman, whom I took to be the father. 
It turned out afterward that he was only the god- 
father, which relieved my mind of some anxiety, be- 
cause I did not at all like the stolid, uninterested way 
in which he looked down on the baby's face while he 
held it. The father was in the sacristy through the 
whole ceremony, and did not so much as peep out. 
The woman who brought the babies was evidently a 
servant, and there was no attempt at holiday attire 
about her ; in fact, the whole atmosphere of the thing 
would have led you to suppose that baptism of twins 
was an every-day thing to them all, and it was much as 
ever they could do to spare time for it. Fancy the 
group, — the priest, the little boy with the candle, the 
heavy godfather holding the baby, the listless ser- 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 201 

vant, and two eager and horrified American women 
looking on ! An old beggar-woman hobbled up too, 
and stood near. The other poor baby meantime was 
left alone in its glass-walled bed half-way down the 
church; the door ajar, and nobody to watch! Such 
a chance to steal a baby ! The priest mumbled and 
galloped over a Latin service; once in a few min- 
utes the little boy said something which sounded like 
'' Nan ! Nan ! " The priest put a great pinch of salt 
into the poor little thing's mouth, breathed on it, put 
oil in its ears, on its breast, and on the back of its neck, 
the godfather holding it bolt upright with the poor 
little one-day-old spine bending and lopping in all di- 
rections ! The sacristan spilt some of the oil, and the 
priest almost laughed out ; then they all laughed ; and 
the servant took twin No. 1 back to the case, and 
brought up No. 2. But we did not stay to see the 
ceremony over again ; it was too horrible. 

The only things I shall remember about this church 
are these twin babies ; the ornamental ^'Sig'j of a gen- 
eral, who died of grief after a defeat in battle ; and a 
fine Grothic arch in the wall over a sarcophagus, — " the 
tomb of an unhnoion person^'^ says Murray. It is won- 
derful, the spell of that " unknown person."* One day 
in the Protestant cemetery in Rome, I found a grave 
without a stone to mark it, and white violets growing 
above. I am not sure that the white violet I brought 
away from that grave has not a voice sweeter than 
that from the grave of Shelley ! Who can tell why ? 

To-day we have had a picturesque day : first, the 
school of San Rocco, three rooms full of Tintoretto's pic- 
tures, about which, since I do not like many of them, 
and am not competent to speak, I hold my tongue. 

Next we went to the church of San Crisostomo ; and 
here is a picture, by Griovanni Bellini, with which one 
can form an intimate friendship ! 1 should like to spend 
mornings with these saints : St. Jerome, high up on a 
rock, with his book ; poor harassed St. Augustine, ia 



202 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRA VELLER. 

his mitre and vestments, on the right ; and on the left, 
St. Christopher with the lovehest baby boy astride on 
his shoulders, holding on tight by one little hand to 
Christopher's black hair. 0, it is delicious ! but then 
it won't sound so, and it is stupid to take up your time 
with empty names of things. 

When we left San Crisostomo we supposed we 
were going directly home. Surely we had seen enough 
for one day ; but as we turned into a narrow^ canal we 
found all the houses decorated with flags, and the flags 
trimmed with black. '' Signora," said Luigi, " there 
is a great funeral in the church on that street." Now 
a funeral was the very thing w^e had wanted to see I 
We had seen how Venetians began, and we had curios- 
ity as to their end ! We had asked Luigi, the day before, 
if he could not find a funeral for us, and he had replied 
quite sadly that funerals were just now out of season. 
Nobody clied in Venice in the spring ! We did not 
wonder that nobody wanted to ; but still it seemed a 
little queer, looked at from a statistical point of view, 
that nobody did. 

Howover, here was a funeral, ready to his hand, and 
a grand one too. We hurried down the little street ; 
every house had the national flag hanging from a win- 
dow, and the staff wreathed with crape ; people were 
all hurrying in the same direction ; in a few moments 
we saw a bridge crowded with men and women, all 
looking eagerly down the canal ! " 0," said we, " we 
are just in time ; the funeral cortege is coming up 
in gondolas " ; so we pushed and elbowed in among 
them, and looked down the canal too ! Nothing to be 
seen, and while we were looking, the crowd dissolved 
and left us. That is the most mysterious thing about 
an Italian crowd ; it gathers dense and black and reso- 
lute in five seconds from nowhere, and in five seconds 
more it has gone like a cloud, and no trace of it left, 
and why it went or why it came you will never know, 
neither does it know itself! 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 203 

Again and again I have asked a man or a woman 
why they were waiting, and they have answered with 
a laugh, " Because there are many people here ! " 
Lamb-like children ! 

The church was near and we ran there, hoping to 
catch the funeral yet. The walls were hung with 
black ; great pyramids of white flowers on the altar ; 
a mass going on, and many people kneeling; so we 
sat down. In a few minutes two men came behind 
us with a ladder, and began to take down the black 
hangings ! This looked unpromising, and at last we 
did what it would have been sensible to do at first, 
asked if there were a funeral to take place there. It 
had happened at nine o'clock in the morning, and now, 
I suppose, they were saying masses for the soul ! The 
men flew about, tearing down the black cambric with 
most unseemly haste, and scattering dust on every- 
body's head, and we walked away quite crestfallen. 

It was a most picturesque little street, about six feet 
wide, and set thick with stores on each side; bread- 
stores with piles, of all imaginable shapes and colors, of 
bread on the open window-sills, (everybody keeps store 
on the window-sill or the door-step here ! ) great bas- 
kets of boiled beets, round and flat like pancakes ; and 
young potatoes, size of nutmegs, also boiled ready to 
eat, were on every corner. Stockings and lace collars 
and China toys and yellow handkerchiefs hung and 
swung and stood and waved to right and left of the 
beets and potatoes. A big butcher was asleep in his 
little cupboard of a store, and on his window-sill stood 
six round earthen cups of what I think must have been 
the dreadful blood-puddings I have heard of; it looked 
simply like blood cooled, with stiffened bubbles on top ! 
It made you faint to think that it could be put there to 
sell to human beings. Then came a fish trattoria, — a 
scene for Rembrandt to paint, — a dark cavern of a shop, 
lit only from one door and window in front; a stone 
furnace in the rear, from which came a fiery red glow; 



204 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRA VELLER. 



two men, with arms bared to the shoulder, standing in 
this firehght, frying fish ! crockery plates set up in 
rows on stone ledges above the fire ; and flat wicker- 
work platters of fish, round, long, flat, whole, sliced, 
curled, straight, floured, and peppered, ready to fry, 
standing in tottering piles in the window ! This was a 
picture, and I stayed so long to look at it I nearly got lost 
going back to the gondola alone. Then I bought out of 
another window a big round cracker, which I hoped 
was made out of unbolted wheat ; but it proved sour 
and uneatable, like everything else we find here, except 
the dazzling white fine bread of the hotels, which is 
sweet simply because it is lifeless, and has no more 
nutrition in it than so much cobweb. 

As we rowed home, Luigi told us all about the fu- 
neral. He had been gossiping with the street in our 
absence, and had found out that it was the funeral of 
a Countess Somebody, who had been very patriotic, 
had run great risks in the times of the wars, had been 
three times in the Austrian prisons, and had lost most 
of her property in consequence ! She was much beloved 
by the people, hence the flags and the kneeling crowds 
at the mass. Some day he is to take us to see the house 
in which she died ; though why we want to see it I can- 
not imagine. 

Sunday the Sixth. — 0, if I could but catch these 
swift days and clip their wings ! Dear people, will you 
not all come to Venice in spring, some year of your 
years, and have our Luigi for gondolier, and be as con- 
tent as we ? All I can write you is dusty, dry. You 
do not know in the least what I have seen. For in- 
stance, on the Thursday which followed the Wednesday 
of the good Countess's funeral, did I not spend a whole 
forenoon in the rooms of Rieti, a Jew with spectacles, 
who hires a palace to keep store in, and who fattens on 
the decay of Venetian families, buying up every shred 
of thing which they have to sell, and setting them, one 
above another, in these palace rooms, to be sold again 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRA VELLEE. 205 

to American men and women ? And would not the 
catalogue of the beautiful and weird and uncanny 
old things i saw there fill a volume ? Chairs and tables 
and chests and sideboards and mirrors, from time of 
Doges down ! Grlass and china and tapestry ; work- 
boxes and crickets and candlesticks and pans and busts 
and gravestones ! Yes, old gravestones there were, 
and hall lamps, and an old medicine-chest, out of which 
came dusty scent of poisons which helped to thin out 
the eleventh century, I am sure! The old leather 
case was dropping and crumbling to pieces, and the 
green baize lining seemed half turned to fungus. It 
was most curiously studded with silver nails, and surely 
belonged to a physician of degree. 

There are six of these stores of antiquity and works 
of art here, and we have been to four of them, for my 
lucky friends have a house, and a room to be refur- 
nished. I feel now as if I had had '^ the run " of all the 
Venetian palaces from the tenth to the sixteenth cen- 
tury. I have lifted off the lids of their soup-tureens, 
tried the hinges and handles of their sideboards, and 
pulled out all their secret drawers. I only wish I had a 
thousand dollars to spend to-morrow morning in small 
articles which would never be missed out of these be- 
wildering confusions. I would buy for one of you a 
stool, whose seat should be crimson, and should be held 
up by a black Moor, a cunning little fellow six years 
old, called Abdalla, I " calculate," and clothed as to 
the loins in a tunic of green and silver. Should you 
mind sitting on him ? He looks very happy, and shows 
all his teeth. For another, you who give httle dinners, 
I would buy a fish, a China fish, to hold your salmon ; 
the platter is gay with flowers ; the fish is purple, — 
mullet, perhaps ; at any rate it is purple and silver, and 
a lemon at top of him for a handle, and by the lemon 
you lift off his upper half, and there will be your sal- 
mon ; and what Doge ever had so good a fish out of it 
before you ! For you who have made a million since I 



2c6 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 

came away — ah ! for you, my dear, there is a set oi 
furniture in ebony inlaid with white ivory tablets, and 
the tablets covered with fantastic designs and patterns, 
like fine etchings ! Such a little wardrobe of drawers 
as stands on a table of this set, three feet high, doors 
always to be kept open, and twenty little drawers 
ready to hold all your letters ! If you like it better, 
there is a set of brown nut-wood inlaid more elabo- 
rately with ivory, not an inch left plain, and all sorts 
of carved ivory figures set in the impossible places. 
These are four things out of thousands ^ but I can tell 
you no more, because in the afternoon we went to 
Torcello, and that is better worth talking over. 

I am tempted to put in a little guide-book about 
Torcello, because I knew so little about it myself 
before coming here that I think some of you may be 
equally ignorant. But I remember that I promised 
never to do guide-book at all, and so I will not yield to 
the temptation ! You will know that it is an island, 
and that before Yenice was Torcello, and had churches 
and bishops and palaces ; it will be easier for you to 
believe all this than it is for me, — though, to be sure, I 
have seen the Cathedral and one church and a bit of 
one palace, but, for all the rest, I find no real faith in 
my heart. Nothing in all Eome, not even the loveliest 
old aqueduct stones in the farthest silence of the cam- 
pagna, ever gave me such sense of desolation, of for- 
gotten life, as the atmosphere of this little island. We 
sailed to it through sunshine, — swiftly too, for we had 
taken an extra rower. The lagoon was astir with fish- 
ing people, and the smoke of work went up from 
Murano, as we passed it, and bells rang from old towers 
on two other islands as we drew near Torcello. We 
had been told that many of the great barges which we 
had seen at sunset coming down the G-rand Canal, 
loaded with cherries and salads and artichokes, and 
all sorts of good garden things, were bringing vegeta- 
bles from Torcello ; so we thought we were going ta 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRA VELLER. 



207 



a thrifty suburb of Venice to find soma old churches 
we knew, but we supposed to breathe the air of to- 
day. 

We liad not gUded ten steps into the silent Torcello 
canal before we felt the hush of a burial-place. So 
low lay the fields, lapping up the slow green water, 
that it seemed as if we might slip over at any minute, 
and be floating above the grass. The silence was inde- 
scribable ; old stone bridges spanned the canal, and as 
we rowed under them the grass nodded down to us 
from the sides and the top ! Had human feet ever 
brushed it ? We grew afraid ; the white honeysuckle 
was in blossom ; and raspberry-bushes, with pink flow- 
ers, made long thickets of hedge, over which here and 
there a scarlet pomegranate looked, as if holding court ; 
bits of old stone-work gleamed out among these wild 
growths ; hardly more than a door-step at a time, a 
corner-stone, or a few inches of wall, all so sunk, so 
bedded in the green, that but for knowing that a city 
and palaces had stood there we should have thought 
them no more than natural stones. After a time we 
found a house or two; then an old bell- tower rising 
up suddenly and ghost-like in the waste, walled in as 
if it were the keep of the powers and principalities of 
the air ! Then we came on a little brood of ducklings, 
— they looked more human than you could conceive, — . 
and then, after another turn, on a Custom House ! This 
took our breath away. I do not know yet what it 
meant. If I were the right sort of traveller I should 
have found out. But its stone steps answered for us to 
land on, and nobody stopped either us or the ducks 
who stepped on shore with us ; and we all crept along 
together. I felt somehow as if they were so much 
safer than we. 

An old woman, whom I almost believe to have been 
alive, showed us the old church of Santa Fosca, and the 
Cathedral. I can't tell you about them. Nobody 
could. The church is a dome on top of a G-reek cross 



2o8 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRA VELLER. 

and a portico with tumbling pillars all around it. The 
cathedral stands close, almost joins the church, and has 
a floor of mosaic, which makes St. Mark's look new ; 
high marble reading-desks ; and around the semi-circu- 
lar apse, behind the high altar, marble seats rising up 
in tiers one above the other, like the Coliseum ; in the 
niddle, the Bishop's chair, and all so old that it looked 
grumbling, — though it never can crumble, and it is not 
^o very old, after all, not more than a thousand years ; 
but it feels, for some inexplicable reason, older than any- 
thing I ever saw. Fresh annunciation lilies were on 
^very altar ; their odor filled the air, and drowned out 
the smell of fungus; the old woman's shoes clapped, 
clapped at the heel with every step she took, and 
echoed in the dark corners. 

Down m the crypt there was a poor old wooden 
Christ, all cobwebs and dust, — a most pitiful thing. As 
we walked by she kissed it, and drew her withered 
hands down the legs to the feet with a lingering touch 
of tenderness and passionate devotion which I never 
saw equalled, and which made my eyes wet for some 
minutes. It must be that which has kept her alive in 
Torcello, — this poor, haggard, hungry old soul. The 
air is poison there ! It was that which drove the peo- 
ple away, and put this melancholy end to the city; 
only a few poor souls live there now, who are too poor 
to live anywhere else, and cannot, perhaps, resist the 
temptation of ground to cultivate ; for green things 
thrive and produce in Torcello, though all the children 
look as if they had just left their beds for the first time 
after some terrible illness. They crowded round us, 
and begged, more by their hollow eyes than by their 
words. I sat down in a great rough stone chair which 
stands in an open space before the cathedral, and in 
front of the old bit of a stone house in which the 
Bishop lived, and gave all the children bonbons which 
I had cribbed from our hotel dinner, — a questionable 
charity, I know, but I had no pennies! and beggars 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 209 

have such digestions in Italy, one feels less scruple 
about giving them unwholesome sweets. 

One little girl, six or seven years old, with great 
gaunt brown eyes, and a weight of tangled auburn- 
black hair, grasped hers firm in her little hand, and 
never opened it. The other children were tearing 
open the bright papers, and munching down the candy, 
like monkeys. She looked at them wistfully, but did 
not offer to touch hers. I explained to her that it was 
good to eat, and tried to make her taste it; at last, 
after I had asked her a dozen times why she did not 
eat it, she whispered so I could but just catch the 
words, — she was so frightened, — that she kept it for 
her little brother ! Did n't I turn my pocket wrong 
side out, and find one more for that little angel? and 
did n't she bite into it in about the shortest second ? 
and do you think I believe in original depravity ? As 
I turned back for my last look at the desolate grass- 
grown piazza, and the cathedral, and the church, and 
the bell-tower, the children were all scrambling to get 
up into the stone chair (they call it Attila's chair, — be- 
cause he never sat in it, I suppose) ; three were already 
in, two more climbing up, and a poor little two-year- 
old tugging away at one of the six legs hanging down 
in front, and trying in vain to lift himself up by it. 

Yesterday I was heroic, stayed in the house, and wrote 
all the forenoon. In the afternoon we rowed over to 
the Enchanted Island, that is the Lido ; the girls and 

Mrs. and Miss T went into the water in Venetian 

bathing-dresses, hired for two francs, and swam about 
as if they had been brides of the Adriatic all their 
lives ! I sat on an upper stair and watched them and 
the sea ; mostly the sea, which was pale, soft gray in 
the distance, and green close at my feet. There were 
many people rowing back and forth on it, and some of 
their sails were orange, and some looked rose-pink 
against the sky. Why do not all sailors have orange 
and pink sails, I wonder ? it is all a sail needs to make 

N 



2IO ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 

it as beautiful as a cloudj and it signifies so much 
more. 

Sunday the Thirteenth. — This Sunday was the anni- 
versary of the adoption of the Constitution by Italy, and 
all the houses were bright with flags ; the square of St. 
Mark's was gay with red and green and white, and in 
the evening there was to be music on the canal. We 
commissioned Luigi to buy an Italian flag for our gon- 
dola, to show our sympathy with freedom, and antici- 
pated a fine night on the water. Alas ! at six o'clock 
the sky was black, and it thundered mutteringly in the 
east; however, we would not be kept in, even by its 
beginning to sprinkle as we took our seats in the gon- 
dola; actually under umbrellas we rowed up to the 
Eialto, and displayed our flag. Some of the gondoliers 
saluted us as we passed, and they all looked pleased 
and smiled. 

The band was playing on a great barge in front of 
the prefect's house, and a few determined people were 
creeping about under umbrellas, as we were ; but it 
was a failure. The sky grew blacker and the drops 
bigger, and, against our wills, we went home. To be 
out in the rain m Venice is too much to be borne by 
the stoutest soul. To be between two fires is always 
accounted a bad thing in battle ; but to be between 
two waters is as bad. Groing home we passed a grave- 
looking American family, singing psalm-tunes in their 
gondola. It sounded very pleasantly, but I could not 
resist the suspicion that it was a kind of a sop to their 
consciences for being out on the G-rand Canal so near 
sunset of a Sunday. 

Wednesday went for looking over photographs in 
the morning, and for three or four not especially inter- 
esting churches in the afternoon ; but you know, with- 
out my taking time to say it, that simply to go from one 
place to another, in this wonderful sea-city, is a delight 
in itself. If it waited for me to say where we should 
go, we should never go anywhere. It never seems to 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 211 

me to make the least difference. I feel as if the gondola 
knew, and would go of itself I should sink down, if I 
were alone, and give no orders to the invisible Luigi. 

Luckily for me, N and P are more wise. IST 

is our gaide, and has always something to propose for each 
day, which is just the best thing to do. Thanks to her, 
we have in this four weeks seen Venice most thorough- 
ly. On Thursday we spent the whole morning in the 
Academy, with the beloved pictures. I feel that I am 
so entirely ignorant of art, that I have hardly right to 
say what I think about any picture. But I am sure of 
one thing : pictures and poems are one. All the pic- 
tures I have seen which have impressed me are poems ; 
and I see that even to my ignorance it becomes clearer 
and clearer in what measure they are written. Also, I 
see that it is as silly to like, or even to be ready to like, 
all the pictures painted by one man, simply because they 
are his, as it is to believe that one's favorite poet could 
not write a poor thing. Did not Browning write '' Mr. 
Sludge the Medium,"^ and Wordsworth '' Peter Bell" ? 
I am wondering about many things in these days, of 
which I have nobody here to ask, and no books to help 
me. I am sure that if one knew literature and art well 
enough, close parallels could be drawn ,out between 
poems and pictures ; and I wonder if there would not 
be historical agreements too. Some of you who know, 
write and tell me what you think about this. Now, I 
find Carpaccio to be a man who painted ballads ! All 
his pictures have the ring and the movement, with the 
light touch. There is a series of them in the Academy, 
which tell the story of St. Ursula. I sit and read it over 
and over and over, as j^ou can, " How they brought the 
Grood News to Ghent." He does not forget what the 
little page said, nor that on that day the maiden was ill 
at ease ; nor that while the ambassadors asked the king 
for the hand of his daughter, outside of the gate sat 
an old stern woman who liked not these foreign woo- 
ings, and muttered that ill would come. Every picture 



212 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 

is a complete ballad in itself; as you look at them, you 
involuntarily walk with steps set to the sound of a 
singer. 

Then there is Bellini, whose pictures are gentle and 
tender, and are like quaint sacred songs. Always he 
puts at base of the pictures little angels or babies sitting 
with crossed legs, and playing on lutes the accompani- 
ment to the song. Most of his pictures are called 
'' Madonna with two Saints," " Madonna with four 
Saints," Madonna and Child," etc., etc. I always think 
of them as '' The true Song of the Day when Catharine 
and Agatha met Mary and the Child Jesus," or " The 
G-reeting of St. Agnes to the Infant Lord," or " The 
Words of Sts. Jerome and Christopher to Augustine the 
Monk." But for all this Bellini has painted many Ma- 
donnas whose faces are like faces of wood; and one 
frightful picture of his has in the clouds over the Madon- 
na's head seven cherub heads of fiery scarlet, like lob- 
ster ! There are two pictures in the Academy by a 
Martino da Udine, a rare man of Bellini's day and 
school, who has left only few things. One of these is the 
Angel of the Annunciation ; the other is a Madonna 
— both single figures, severe, alone, no accessories, but 
an air of heaven about the one, and of sanctified earth 
in the other, which it is good to see. I know lines in 
George Herbert — written, is it one hundred or more 
years later ? — which are hke these pictures. Titian's 
single heads and single figures are the sonnets, either 
solemn and slow, with the whole of the man's life con- 
centrated into that day's voice, or vivid fiery, like the 
passionate outpouring of one moment ! His " Presen- 
tation of the Little Virgin at the Temple " is the picture 
I like best of all the pictures I have yet seen, except 
the '' Last Communion of St. Jerome," by Domenichino, 
in Eome. It is a grand epic poem. There is the 
whole of Jerusalem and the worship of the Temple in 
the figures of the high-priests, all Jewry in the crowd 
below, and all Christianity and redemption in the figure 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 213 

of the little Yirgin. All my life, blue Avill be more sacred 
to me by reason of this little Virgin's gown ! And as for 
red, it has always been to me like the key-note of a uni- 
verse of hidden things, like a very spell in the air ; and 
now I know that Titian had been taken inside of its mys- 
tery, and signed with its sign. Every day I see men 
in the Academy sitting down calmly to copy Titian's 
red ! and I wonder at their being suffered to go about 
without keepers. 

From the Academy we went to the house of two old 

Venetian ladies, sisters of an artist whom P and 

N knew when they were here before, and who 

made a copy of one of Bellini's pictures for them. She 
was sick and deformed and poor, but had great talent as 
a copyist, and had worked with great industry, for all 
the rooms of the little house were hung with her draw- 
ings and paintings. She died some two years ago, 
and these two poor old sisters were so gratified and 
touched at her being remembered and sought out by 
strangers for whom she had painted, that it was hard 
to know what to say to them, especially if you did 
not know many words of their language! But the 
sight of the house and their way of living was most 
interesting. After all, one such interior picture is 
worth scores of common outside views; they must 
once have " seen better days," — everything in their 
manner and surroundings showed this. They have 
now no servant, and one sister could not see us this 
morning. We knew by the stir and the odors that 
she was cooking their dinner ; and who but she could 
it have been who snatched and hid the string of onions 
which, when we arrived, was hanging on the hat-rack 
in the front hall, — by side of an old cotton umbrella ! — 
and when we went away was no longer there ? The 
sister we saw was perhaps seventy years old. Her 
eyes were faded, and her lips very shaky, but she 
must once have been handsome; and the woman had 
not by any means died out of her old heart, for when 



214 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 

I recognized as her portrait the face of a handsome 
woman of not more than thirty-five, among her sister's 
paintings on the walls of the little parlor, her wrinkled 
cheeks flushed with pleasure, and she smiled a little as 
she might have smiled the day the picture was painted. 

She wore, just as such pitiful *' genteel " old ladies do 
at home, — and, I suppose, all the world over, — skimpy 
black clothes, gray with age, and a forlorn, dusty black 
lace thing on the back of her head, — they always 
look more like palls than like caps on that kind of old 
lady. They asked high prices for their sister's pictures, 
and I am afraid they will not sell all of them. The 
girls bought a lovely little picture of a picturesque pal- 
ace on the Grand Canal, at which we look almost every 
afternoon. They could hardly have found a more vivid 
bit of Venice to carry away with them than this little 
sketch by the poor dead Eafifaella. 

In the afternoon we went into the house of another 
Venetian family. Such a contrast ! This family's 
name is Griovanelli ; and the Prince Griovanelli mar- 
ried a Contarini, and, of the Contarinis, five have been 
doges ! and the house in which this Griovanelli and 
Contarini live is the most splendid palace in Venice. 
Did we not do well to go to the poor old sisters first? 
It was like the one bit of red which Titian throws in 
at last, in the distance of his pictures, which brings all 
the other colors out. But you see plainly that of this 
palace I cannot tell you much, because there is a limit 
to a letter, though you may think I don't know it ; 
neither did I half tell you about the other little home. 
■ I shall remember it quite as long as the grand one. 
Mrs. Contarini GriovaneUi is the only palace-owning 
lady that I have envied. I would not have taken one 
of the superb palaces in G-enoa as a gift, if I were to be 
compelled to stay in their great ghostly rooms. But 
this Griovanelli palace, superb as it is, is cosey. Think 
of that ! — a cosey palace ! — a boudoir of blue, blue 
damask from ceiling to floor, and a ceiling like a hollow 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 215 

shell, and a rounding blue satin sofa, on which she sits 
and mends her husband's shirts. How do I know ? 
By this token, that in a costly glass toy on a little 
table before the sofa, and among a thousand dollars' or 
so worth of other trifles in the way of baskets and 
statuettes and boxes, were three old shirt-bosom but- 
tons ! ! close to her work-basket, — which might have 
been yours or mine, it was so neat and simple. Their 
bedroom is regal, — ebony and yellow damask ; but — 
the but, even in a palace ! — on this gorgeous ebony 
stood, in easy reach from one of the yellow satin beds, 
cold-cream and — a bottle of inagnesia ! Heartburn, 
you see, even for a descendant of doges, in this dream 
of a palace. I, who never had heartburn, and would 
die before I took magnesia, chuckled and passed on. 

A crimson room, satin tapestry, on walls with raised 
velvet figures ; a yell ow-and- white room, the tapestry 
woven to fit, with the coat of arms wrought in here 
and there; a picture-gallery hung with claret velvet, 
and holding rare pictures, — Titian and Veronese and 
Bellini and Durer and Yan Dj^ck and Rembrandt; a 
dining-room with carvings and purple velvet and China, 
which was a study in itself; a sitting-room with a 
grand piano and a marvellous bird-cage of gay lattice- 
work alternating with transparencies, on which were 
painted morning-glories and honeysuckles ! In the 
cage, seven little Japanese birds, drab and scarlet and 
gray ; on the piano, cigars of several sorts, ready for 
the prince after dinner. This is a skeleton glimpse for 
you of the Griovanelli's ways of living. 

I shall never forget the glow on the faces of some of 
Titian's portraits of doges, which hang in the crimson 
room ; not all the heat of the red tapestry of Lyons 
can dull the glow of the orange and red mantles, or 
approach the kindling fire in the faces. 

" Is there a library ? " said we. 

" No," said the courteous and elegant creature, called 
servant, who had showed us his master's house. And 



2l6 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 

somehow I instantly felt as if it had been quite imper- 
tinent to ask, and as if perhaps, after all, books were a 
superfluous indulgence. The prince must read, for he 
is '' Syndic of Venice " and '* Senator of Italy " ; but 
not a book did we see, except some ornamental ones to 
match the crimson furniture. 

Yesterday, two more churches, — San Zaccaria, which 
is the first church in Venice I have liked ; and San Grior- 
gio degli Schiavoni, a little one-room, upper-chamber 
sort of a church, in an out-of-the-way quarter where 
are nine quaint old pictures by my favorite ballad-man, 
Carpaccio, sung when he was young ; with too many 
adjectives, but ringing, ringing like all the rest. I 
shall grow to remember his things better than any 
others if I study them much more. That also is like the 
hold a ballad gets on you ; it haunts your downsitting 
and uprising, as no other verse can. 

I must not forget to tell you about Murano. We 
rowed over there on Saturday afternoon to see the 
famous glass-works. The minute you get away from 
Venice, and roAV off towards the other islands, it all 
looks more and more unreal ; the islands look like noth- 
ing but mirages, and Venice itself looks like a gigantic 
colored phantasm, just that minute set up against the 
sky by some magician. You have not the least faith 
in getting anywhere, unless possibly you might be cast 
up, gondola and all, like a bit of sea-weed, at foot of 
the Apennines or Alps or Himalayas, whichever they 
are, that stand up sharp and real along the coast, 
whether south or west I do not know, — I can't find 
out, I never shall ; but there they are, the only actual- 
looking things to be seen. You feel as if the world 
began at their base, and you were drifting around outside, 
part of a great miracle-play. This is not wild talk ; it is 
the way everybody must feel after half an hour of gon- 
dola in these waters. Perhaps they do not analyze their 
bewilderment so closely as I have ; but if they did they 
would find it all there. I see it all in their faces as they 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRA VELLER. 



217 



glide by, even in the most stolid and Jewish of them 
all. 

Well, after three quarters of an hour of this, we 
bumped up against a wharf, which did not really elude 
us and fade out of sight, and a very tangible old beggar 
hooked us fast, and we stepped out on the thin crust of 
stone, over Murano piers, and began to look for glass- 
houses. Of course we were pounced on instantly by 
Murano loafers, who scented our errand and our inex- 
perience. We are a tempting-looking trio, — three not 
bad-looking women, tolerably well dressed, and usually 
on the broad laugh, with any amount of desire for in- 
formation in our faces. Of course we are as plainly 
meant for custodi and cicironi as fish are for gulls ; but 
we are growing sharp in Venice, there is too much of 
it here, and what with Kuskin and Howells and Murray 
and Baedeker we know so much more than the guides 
do that we are quite justified in scorning them. How- 
ever, in Murano we were helpless, and we were led off 
meekly as lambs by a horrible old simpleton, who pre- 
tended to understand us, but I think did not compre- 
hend one word we said. Into one dark furnace-depth 
after another we plunged, at his heels, and into aisles of 
astonished-looking workmen, and saw them blow glass 
bottles (just as they do in Sandwich, Massachusetts), and 
draw out long hollow threads of fiery glass, and snap 
it off like pipe-stems ; and we paid odd francs here and 
there to people who h.ad not done anything to earn 
them ; and we stood about till we ached all over and 
got quite cross ; and then all of a sudden we ^' struck " 
for lower wages and no guide ; frightened the sim- 
pleton off our track, jumped into our gondola and 
rowed off to the Museum ! Murano was such an un- 
canny place, I was horribly afraid we should be turned 
into something or other, and have to stay there all the 
rest of our lives. It is a kind of t ghost of a poor re- 
lation of Venice; canals and houses and bridges, and 
old carved corners and balconies, and black gondolas, 
10 



2i8 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 

but all beggarly and ghostlike. The Museum was a 
great stalwart building which looked out of place there, 
and fresh signs of offices of one sort and another on 
the first floor made us afraid we had lost our way ; but 
we soon found the custode^ and he trotted us about 
through five rooms of the most wonderful glassware 
we ever dreamed of. 

Do not suppose there is anything which cannot be 
made of glass if you set about it in Murano : chande- 
liers, gigantic and of really graceful shapes, all glass ; 
tables which looked like mosaic, mirrors framed in glass, 
and roses and convolvuluses, and green leaves wreathed 
about them, all glass; a bonnet, with daisies on the 
top, and openwork lace strings, all glass ; a high 
stove-pipe hat, light brown, quite pliable, nothing but 
glass ; a portrait of an old doge, frame and all glass ; 
portraits of Victor Emmanuel and other people by the 
yard, run in a long stick like a stick of candy, and 
wherever you sliced it off there would be the perfect 
portrait, so wonderfully were the colors put in. Then 
there were all possible shapes and sorts and sizes of 
vases and tumblers and pitchers and cups and candle- 
sticks, white and yellow and green and red and opal, 
and lapis-lazuli and malachite ; some painted in old 
styles, the secret of which is now lost ; some threaded 
in and out with threads of color, or of white, as fine 
as cobweb silk; — five rooms filled with these, and many 
others that I do not remember. 

When we came home the light was so beautiful on the 
G-rand Canal (0, if one could be permitted to call it 
anything but a canal!) that I could not go in; so we 

dropped N on our watery door-step, and P 

and I rowed off again for the moonlight. We found a 
great steam-yacht anchored in front of the Doge's 
palace, and the canal gay with gondolas and music. ISTo 
less than the Viceroy oi Egypt had come in the yacht, 
and the Duke of Brunswick was in the hotel, and the 
serenade was just as good for us as for them ; and we 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 219 

rowed up and down till ten o'clock, and heard the whole 
of it, and then we went home silently, so as not to break 
up the dream. 

To-day has been such a day that I have hardly cour- 
age to try to tell it. I can only give you the barest 
skeleton. If I were to really describe the hours, my 
letter would be forty pages long. 

In the morning we went to the Doge's palace, stood 
on the Doge's balcony, and looked seaward ; walked 
over, I mean through, the Bridge of Sighs ; saw the door 
which shut the prisoners who went to the Council of 
Three from those who went to the Council of Ten ; 
looked into the cell where Marino Falieri was confined, 
and sat down on Carmagnuola's bed. the horror of 
those cells ! no light except through a small round hole, 
by which the food was put in ; the door so low I had 
to double to step through it. The Mamertine prisons in 
Eome were not much worse. One of these cells is still 
lined with wood, as they all were in the days of these 
terrors ; the guide gave me a piece which he broke off 
in a dark corner over the door, — '■ it is quite worm-eaten. 
I suppose the prisoners now and then, perhaps, could 
hear a little nibble. 

Then we went up into the grand Hall of Council, and 
saw Tintoretto's great picture of Paradise, the largest 
picture on canvas in the world. I should hope so. It 

would cover two sides of Dr. T 's church, I think ; 

and what do you say to it for a conception of heaven, 
when I tell you that even at that size it is crowded 
with figures ; packed, jammed, wedged, they are, — the 
saints of Tintoretto. I would rather be any kind of a 
sinner in any other place where there was elbow-room. 
The only thing that gave me pleasure was to see that 
St. Mark had got his lion in. The sagacious beast is 
looking up in St, Mark's face with such an earnest, in- 
quiring expression, puzzled and uneasy, as if he said, 
^* Well, really, master, is it possible you like this kind 
of thing, and do you mean to stay long ? " 



2 20 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 

Now I will take you to a concert on the Grrand 
Canal. We are in our gondola, quite close to the Vice- 
roy's steamer; it is not quite twilight, and the lamps 
are lit in the cabin, and the great people are at dinner. 
Brown Egyptians, who look much like Marshpee In- 
dians in red fezes, are clambering about in a kind of 
busy idleness all over the boat ; and the Viceroy's little 
boy, ten years old, also in a red fez, is on deck with 
tiis tutor, a gray-headed old fehow, who does n't look 
half so wise as the boy. Poor little soul, to have been 
put through all this before twelve ! What a sucked 
orange his world will be before he is twenty ! I never 
eee these experienced children without thinking how 
much better off they are who begin with mud-pies 
and a " cubby-house " of broken crockery, as we did. 
Did n't you ? I did, at any rate, and the consequence 

is that here am I to-night, ! years old, but deli- 

ciously delighted and amused with the outside of the 
Viceroy's ship, and the show, and the music, while this 
baby of ten sat and twirled his little cane, and looked 
on as indifferently as an old loafer. The bands of music 
were on two gondolas which had been fastened together 
and draped with blue and white, making a great fairy- 
like barge, which was towed up and down by three 
other gondolas draped in white, and rowed by gondo- 
liers in white and black velvet. We all raced about 
after this barge, sixty or a hundred gondolas of us, and 
tried to get as close to it as we could, which was fool- 
ish ; but all people are sheep when they are in crowds. 
This is n't quite true, however, for we did not like to 
be in such jams, and kept moving off as well as we 
could ; but, in spite of us, we were wedged much of the 
time. On the Viceroy's steamer was a band, — African, 
should say, and made up two thirds of cymbals and 
tambourines ; but it suited the fezes and the color of the 
men, and the red and yellow and green lights with which 
the whole ship was illuminated. Did n't we believe in 
Aladdin just then ? I think the Viceroy lives in his 
palace. 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 221 

Then came a gondola waving with green laurel- 
bushes, with colored lanterns swinging among them. 
This was the most beautiful of all ; on this were singers 
who sang songs, and if they were singing still, we 
should still be there listening to them, because to come 
away from the Grrand Canal in Venice when Venetian 
men are singing on the water is not in the power of 
human beings. The Ten Commandments can be kept 
perhaps; people are said to have done it; but this is 
harder. 

The ships in the harbor were gay with colors, and 
there were rockets and Bengal lights and Eoman can- 
dles in all directions ; and after the Viceroy and his 
guests had done their dinner, they stepped into such 
gondolas, — the royal gondola blue velvet and silver, 
with six gondoliers in blue and white ; the others green 
and purple and yellow, — and away they all rowed up 
the Griudeca. 

Later in the evening we were near the Rialto, and 
all of a sudden the whole cortege shot past us. the 
sweep of a gondola with six rowers ! Several of the 
gondolas had Bengal lights at the prow, and the effect 
of this light on the old stone fronts of the palaces and 
on the bridge was something that sobered and saddened 
you in a second. The very stones seemed to cry out, 
'^ We are dead, we are dead." After all, Venice is a 
ghost. The banquet is over, and these shows of to-day 
make the old palaces scornful in their tombs, I dare 
say. Now who could sleep after such a night? But 
one has a duty to one's eyes ; so good by. 

On Monday I went alone to the Academy, and had 
a feast off a few pictures which I like. Do not be 
afraid I shall tell you much about them. I have told 
you about Titian's little Virgin in '"'' The Presentation," 
— have I not ? That is a picture for which one might 
almost sell one's soul, if taken in the right moment ! 
My love of this picture has almost cost me the loss of 
all the others in the building, I find it so hard to leave iti 



222 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 

Then there is a St. John by Veronese, which one 
could look at and grow happier for a lifetime ; and 
such grand old ballad pictures by Carpaccio, and lyrics 
by Bellini, with cunning little angels playing accompani- 
ments at the base of altars. 

There is a head of Homer by Caravaggio here which 
is grander than Milton's Hymn. The darkened air and 
those sightless eyes ! You have a fear of blindness 
hanging over you wherever you go, on the day in which 
you look at this picture. 

In the afternoon P and I roamed (and wriggled) 

through the cracks in the walls where the shops are, 
and looked in at the windows, and said what we would 
Hke to buy, and went in and " priced " things, after 
the manner of women, for two hours or more, but did 
not spend any money, which I hope is set down to us 
for righteousness. 

On Tuesday was the Arsenal, not very good to tell 
about, but worth while to see. Stacks of old armor, 
complete suit of Henri Quatre, and a helmet of Attila's, 
and the visor of Attila's horse among them. Some old 
monster's instruments of torture, a thumb-screw and a 
collar, and a pistol of poisoned arrows, and an iron hel- 
met. I had my thumb in the screws for a minute, and 
the guide squeezed it down for me within one of the 
point at which I should have abjured Calvinism (if that 
is what I beheve.) There were all sorts of wooden 
models of all sorts of ships and boats and forts ; two 
sides of old Venetian galleys, carved in great figures, 
and all gilt and red, — • they must have been gay things 
afloat ; a mast of the old Bucentaur, and a picture of 
it ; and the model ot it, eighty feet long, which the 
Austrians carried off with them, the thieves ! A great 
torn and patched and faded shred of a flag which came 
out of the battle of Lepanto ; a suit of armor made for 
a little boy eight years old, the son of some Doge, who 
wished to inure the poor baby to war, and kept him on 
the walls in war time in this frightful suit of mail. It 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 



223 



was on a lay-figure of wood, and even the white round 
wooden face looked scared, just as, no doubt, the poor 
son of the Doge did ! 

A patronizing officer went about with us, and said he 
had been in Boston and Montreal, and that people had 
to be very rich to live in America. Ah, we knew what 
that meant, — that he expected a big fee ! But afterward 

he asked N if we had all been married ; so for his 

impertinence we gave him only a franc, and he looked 
quite taken down when we came away. 

Wednesday we went over the Viceroy's yacht. At first 
the Marshpee Indians — I mean Egyptians — did not 
seem inclined to let us go on board ; but we coaxed and 
wheedled them as well as we could at six arms' length, 
rocking in a gondola under their stern, and at last we 
prevailed. 

Going to sea would not be a bad thing to do in the 

Yiceroy's yacht. Mrs. T said it was far handsomer 

than the Queen's. Such a luxurious cabin you never 
dreamed of, — satin damask of the most exquisite gray 
color, with bright rosebuds and vines over it, on every 
chair or sofa or cushion ; mosaics from Eome for ta- 
bles ; inlaid work in woods and in silver on the walls ; 
above every lamp a convoluted shell with mosaic and 
mother-of-pearl in it to reflect the light ; — does n't it 
sound comfortable? 

They did not show us the bedroom, and we were 
afraid to ask, for they crowded about us, and their black 
eyes gleamed with something which did not impress us 
as being the pure respectfulness to which we were ac- 
customed ; and I, for one, felt a httle happier when we 
were fairly out of the ship. But we had seen Ismail 
Pacha's cabin and all his men ; most of their clothes, 
too, which looked like the shirts and trousers of any 
other nation, and were all hung out to dry on long lines 
forward. They were very busy getting ready to leave 
Venice the next day, as soon as the Vicero}^ should 
return from Florence, and I dare say it did not please 
them to be interrupted by five women's questions. 



224 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 

In San G-iorgio are some fine carvings in wood. 
They were made by a Flemish somebody. There are 
sixty seats or stalls for the priests in a semicircle ; the 
backs and the arms and the railings in front, and every 
available inch, all are cut into the most exquisite and 
effective picturing. It is the life of St. Benedict which 
is the theme of the largest panels, those making the 
backs of the seats. It begins with the St. Benedict 
baby and Mrs. Benedict in bed, and the nurse and the 
doctor, and the rest of them giving the Benedict baby 
its first bath ; and so on down through the saint's whole 
career, about which I was ashamed to know nothing. 
One dies daily of shame at one's own ignorance here. 
But these lovely carvings are as fine and telling as 
bronze ; some of the faces I shall remember always, and 
the riotous foUage and ornament everywhere. The 
Fleming must have hved long and put his best years 
into this wood. 

Thursday we saw the Viceroy and his whole suite 

come down the G- C in the royal gondolas, and 

go on board the small tug to take them to their steamer. 
Ismail Pacha looked Hke any Mr. Smith of America, 
full brown beard and fat cheeks; the officers blazed 
with uniform and orders ; the bands played, the singers 
sang, and Venice looked on from the air with her old 
palace front as strong and regal and unmoved as ever. 
the queenhood of the face of this sinking city ! three 
inches in a century it goes down, — did you know it ? — 
so the end is sure ! 

On Friday we went to Murano again, and saw the 
colored and twisted and flowered glass and beads made, 

and I had two tumblers made for little H and 

A , and, like the smaller child I am myself, cracked 

one on the voyage home, in my hurry to get it out of 
the cooling seaweed it had been packed in, and smashed 
the other on the stone stairs as I went up to bed ! 

On Saturday we went to the Lido, looked at clover 
and buttercups, and ragged-robin, and green fields, and 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 22- 

old Jewish graves overgrown with rank grass, and piled 
up shells on the shore of the Adriatic. 

Yesterday we went to a Scotch Presbyterian meet- 
ing in a little room on the Grand Canal. Think of the 
antithesis of the thing 1 



10* 



;26 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 



Berchtesgaden, BavakiA, Tuesday, July 6, 1869. 

DEAR PEOPLE : This is what we do of an after- 
noon, if the afternoon happen to be this one just 
going. After dinner we saw from our front window a 
priest bearing the crucifix, and httle boys with candles 
going into the church which is opposite ; in the morn- 
ing P had seen a man and woman digging a grave 

in the graveyard, which is also opposite our house. 
(Don't think we dislike it : on the contrary, it is the 
cheerfullest place I ever saw. The crosses almost elbow 
each other, they are so close ; they are gay with wreaths 
and bunches -f flowers, and on every gia/e are grow- 
ing forget-me-riots or roses or sweet-williams.) So we 
thought there would be a funeral soon, and were on 
the watch for it ; but, just as it was in Venice, we were 
a little too late. It must have happened while we were 
at dinner, and when we got there, — now you will 
never believe me, but it is true, — there was nobody left 
in tlie graveyard but three old women and two little 
children ; and two of the old women were sitting on a 
grave knitting, while the third was filhng up the grave 
with a kind of hoe ; the two babies were leaning over 
the edge and looking at each fall of the earth on the 
boards ! We were so horrified that we walked imme- 
diately away, and in our excitement sat down on one 
of the praying benches with our backs to a huge cruci- 
fix, and never observed what an irreverence we were 
guilty of, until an old peasant woman came by, and, 
with a stern look at us, knelt directly before us and 
made the sign of the cross. We fled again, this time 
out of the churchyard, and down a staircase path 
which leads to the river, by way of much zigzag 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 227 

through two or three people's grounds. This wonder- 
ful little village is so up and down hill, that you are 
always coming on bits of staircase, built in for a short 
cut, where, without it, you would have to go miles 

round. Pretty soon P found it too warm and 

went home, but I kept on till I found a shady place 
Under an old stone wall, where I camped. It was on 
the edge of a thoroughfare path from one part of the 
river road to the top of the hill, so I had sight of every- 
body who went on foot that way for an hour. An old 
woman with a fishing-pole and trout in a pretty wooden 
firkin; — I peeped at the trout and said " guteri," and 
pointed to the hotel where we stay, and she nodded 
and said ^'Ja " ; so I dare say we shall have these very 
fish for supper. Then an old man on crutches, — how 
he was ever to get up that steep chmb I could not see, 
nor for that matter how he could walk anywhere, 
he was so old, and the crutches so poor; but the very 
poorest, most tottering old people here bid you good 
day with such a cheery, contented, good-fellowship, 
voice, and smile, that you would not be afraid to change 
places^ with the forlornest of them. Probably you 
would be the gainer. I never saw such beautiful souls 
shining through such hideous faces. Really the transi- 
tion from the average wayside face of Italy to that 
of G-ermany is a severe cold bath to one's artistic 
sense, — such persistent and unconscious ugliness! At 
first I was vexed with them for not looking humili- 
ated ; but presently I perceived that it was grand in 
them not to discover that tl^ey were hideous, — a posi- 
tive pre-apple innocence of all vanity. Already they 
have grown beautiful to me, and their hearty recogni- 
tion of every human soul they meet is the most divine 
thing I have ever known a whole community to do. I 
intend, all the rest of my life, to smile and say '' Grood 
morning " to everybody I pass on the road ; and be set 
down for a mad woman ? Yes, I suppose so. I 
did not mean in New York or London, though; I 



2 28 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 

meant in the blessed country. I said " road," if jou 
observe. After a time " Barefoot '' came by with a 
great pail of strawberries on her arm tied up in a yel- 
low silk handkerchief I peeped into this too, and they 
looked so ripe and red and dewy that I thought per- 
haps for once they would taste like strawberries if I 
bought them out of her hand and ate them on the 
highway. For you must know that from the 1st of 
last May till now I have been steadily eating straw- 
berries, and not a strawberry of them all has had the 
real strawberry flavor. They have a name to live and 
are dead, — these " Alpine strawberries," which have 
such a fine sound to the ear. I would give a bushel of 
them for a saucer full from Bethlehem, New Hampshire, 
any day. I held out a kreutzer to her with one hand, 
and made signs that she should put the berries into the 
other; she gave me a large handful, and wanted to 
give me more, but there was no room. I ate them 
slowly from the tip of a sharp grass blade, and dis- 
covered that they were a little less lifeless without 
sugar, which will be an economy for the landlord of 
the Watzman; several of them rolled away in the 
grass, and were at once pounced upon by mysterious 
crawling people of many kinds, who fell to with a less 
fastidious appetite than mine. I burst out laughing all 
alone by myself, to think how droll it was that there 
should be such a difference between an ant and me, — I 
eating the berries down by the handful, and he stretch- 
ing his neck up to get a nibble off the great red moun- 
tain ! Then I picked some purple thyme, and some vines 
of yellow " money," which straggles all about the road- 
sides here, and then I washed my hands in a little 
brook which ran under the thyme and '' money," and 
then I went home and went into the dining-room and 
turned the G-erman waiter's head by making signs that 
I wanted two toothpick dishes. He kept tipping out 
bunch after bunch of toothpicks and giving them to 
me, and I kept putting down the toothpicks and 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 229 

olutching at the dish, till I got into such a fit of laugh- 
ter 1 was afraid he would never treat me respectfully 
again. However, at last I triumphed and bore off two 
of the dishes, leaving him looking at the toothpicks 
scattered all over the tablecloth. On the stairs I met 
our little '' Special Providence," as I call him, — a fat 
curly boy who speaks English, and I told him I want- 
ed the dishes to put flowers in, so I hope he explained 
to the other. They are dear little oblong dishes of 
glass, four or five inches long, and one and a half wide, 
and I have had my eye on them, ever since I have been 
here, for thyme and "money." Now one stands on my 
right hand on my writing-table, and one on the centre- 
table in P 's room ; and anything lovelier you could 

not see than the pale purple and the bright yellow, and 
the tangled sprays falling over as if they were still by 
the roadside. 

To-morrow I suppose I might as well tell you how 
we got here, and what sort of a place it is, which it 
would have been more business-hke to do in the begin- 
ning of my letter, only that one never does begin 
where one ought, nor leave off where one should. But 
you are going to be let off easy this time ! no such 
thirty-six pages as the last ! Upon my word, such a 
sight as I just saw from my window, — a man and a 
woman coming up the road, the woman carrying a load 
of wood in her arms, and the man carrying only an 
umbrella ! And just as I was getting hot at the look 
of it, do you think he did n't march up and give her the 
umbrella too ! 

Wednesday^ July 8. — Eeally these people make 
me cry. I have been rambling about the village this 
morning, sitting down in shady nooks and reading 
over a great delicious parcel of newspaper extracts 
from America; and three different blessed old souls 
stopped and spoke to me in such a way that I could 
not keep the tears out of my eyes. First, the poor old 
man on crutches ; 1 meet him everywhere. I don't see 



230 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 

anybody with legs who walks so much. He thinks he 
knows me now, and so he adds more and more cour- 
tesy and benediction to his greeting every day. I do 
beUeve he is inspired. I never saw such a radiant look 
of content on any human face, yet he is very, very 
thin. I do not beheve he ever has enough to eat, and 
his clothes are very poor. I would give a hundred 
dollars (if I had it !) to be able to speak to him. I am 
sure I cannot put into my simple bow and smile one 
half the reverence I feel for him. Then, as I was sit- 
ting on some stairs in the heart of a meadow hill, mid- 
way between the church and the river, came \)j an 
old woman with a rough wallet holding two loaves of 
black bread and her shoes ! She stopped and nodded, 
and nodded and smiled, and said " Grood morning ! " 
and then added, ^^ It is good here," or, as they say still 
more effectively, " Here is good." I said, " Yes, yes," and 
smiled back again as hard as I could, but, dear me ! what 
would I have given for a few words ! Then I struck 
out of the path, and half ran and half rolled down the 
other side of the hill, and came into a Brattleboro' path, 
on the edge of a stony brook and set thick with pur- 
ple vetch and tiny sunflowers, and white "snow- 
flake " and " pride of the meadow," and half a dozen 
more of our common field-flowers. I made a big 
bunch of purple and yellow and white, and fringed it 
with green grass and odd leaves, and then sat down 
bare-headed under a tree, and plunged again into my 
newspapers. John Weiss and Frothingham and Emer- 
son ! how good their voices sounded under this sky ! I 
was quite lost in listening to them, when a great, gruff 
voice said, " Ja, ja, hier ist gut " ('' here it is good "), 
and there stood a Berchtesgaden carpenter, his foot- 
rule sticking out of his pocket, and a bundle of boards 
under his arm, looking with such genuine sympathy 
at my flowers, at my hat hung on my umbrella, and 
at me. I nodded and said as nearly as I could the 
same words after him. Then he laughed a little at 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 



231 



my G-erman, and lifted his hat, and kept it in his hand 
till he had passed many steps beyond me. Think of 
the air of such a place ! I positively begin to wonder 
if they sin here ! I suppose somebody must. But 
none of these people who smile and look so serene and 
say '^ Grood morning " to me do ; I '11 go bail for them, 
all of them. They seem to me just as true and beau- 
tiful and harmonious as the trees and the butterflies ; 
and as for going back from this atmosphere to that 
of the rest of the world, ^ do not believe I can. I 
shall stay here till somebody comes to carry me away. 
I already feel as if never of my own free-will could I 
turn my back on these hills. And how can I tell you 
what they are like to the eye ? Like Brattleboro' and 
Bethlehem married and come to spend honeymoon in 
the Alps ! Now I have exhausted my fancy on that 
figure, and how you will all laugh at it ! But it is 
like Brattleboro'. There are soft-wooded hills that 
lap and circle ; and there are paths everywhere by 
little brooks, and roads everywhere by stony foam- 
ing rivers ; and such pine woods as Brattleboro's will 
be when they grow up. These are, well, forty or fifty 
feet higher! Never did I think a fir could be so tall 
and not snap. I am afraid, driving between them. 
Then there are mountains, like Mt. Washington in its 
best October days, purple or gray, with patches of 
snow dazzling white; and then there is the giant Watz- 
man, the king of them all, and he has a glacier. Also 
there are lakes, only one of which I have seen, and 
that is so wonderfully beautiful that I cannot try to 
tell you anything about it, but I shall put in some little 
photograph pictures into this letter ; from them you 
can build the air castles for yourselves, and put in the 
mountains and the woods and the lakes and the 
people. 

The " Gruest House and Brewery " at which we are 
staying looks much better in reahty than in this very 
bald little picture. It should have been taken so as to 



232 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 

throw in the whole of the hill on the left, which has 
pine-trees at top, and is one of my morning haunts. 
It is quite as high as the hill behind, on the top of 
which you will see a house gleaming out among the 
trees. Now you can understand from these why we 
go up and down stairs all over the village. It is not 
six minutes' walk from the Watzman to that house on 
the top of the hill, but more than half of the way is 
up stairs. On a small clear plateau of this hill, over- 
looking the whole village, and in full sight from every 
part of it, is a large shrine in which is a fearful repre- 
sentation of the Crucifixion. The Saviour and the 
two thieves, figures of wood, and large as life ! We 
have found these at every step of the way since we 
entered Germany, of all sizes, colors, and degrees of 
the horrible. At first I could not look at them, and felt 
only a sense of repulsion and antagonism against the 
religion which had put them there, but I have now 
entirely changed my feeling about them. I believe 
that much of the sweet beautiful recognition which the 
people give to strangers and to each other has grown 
out of the habitual reverence of their daily lives for 
these imoges of Christ and the saints. The smallest 
child, the coarsest man, uncovers his head in passing 
one of these shrines. We are very bigoted and stupid, 
it seems to me, in assuming that it is the tMng which 
the Koman Catholic reverences, when he kneels before 
his poor tawdry saint, or kisses the feet of the silver 
Christ. We who have pictures which we kiss daily 
ought to be more just than that. 

Opposite this hotel is a most picturesque old church 
and graveyard; 0, 1 remember, I told you so! Well, 
joining the church is a little shrine, with a group of 
figures in it which I defy anybody to see without 
laughing, they are so grotesque, so hideously absurd; 
and yet I cannot now look out at them at night, 
and see the little solitary beam of the lamp burning 
before it, without a thrill. I think there will be some 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 233 

hard moments in my life to come, when, if I think of 
Grethsemane, I shall think of this dreadful little shrine 
in the Tyrol, and of the earnest, pleading, praying souls 
I have seen kneeling before it. It is the night in G-eth- 
semane; the Christ and all the Apostles have wreaths 
of artificial roses on their heads. The positions of 
two or three of the sleeping Apostles are so ludicrous 
that I should not dare to describe them. Several little 
fat angels, also with wreaths, are hung by wires from 
the roof, and a big angel, worst of all, is directly in 
front of the kneeling Christ, supporting him. Never in 
the poorest country church have I seen anything so 
frightfully grotesque, and yet I have seen men kneel 
before that iron railing with that in their faces which 
it smote me to the heart to see ; I should never have 
done justice to what the Roman Cathohc religion was 
intended to be, if I had not come face to face with it in 
these honest, earnest, solemn country people of South 
Grermany. In Italy it was no more the same thing than 
if it did not bear the same name. I wonder daily if 
this be not its very strongest hold, — I mean, on the 
masses. 

July 14. — Well, dear people, I could not put in, if 
I tried, all that we have seen since I wrote these last 
pages of rhapsody over country Catholicism. Such 
a tumble as we have had, and such a scatter ! At first 
I thought I Avould not try to tell you the story, it 
would be so long; but it is too good to keep. To 
begin back, we were told,- before coming to Berchtes- 
gaden, that the hotels here would not " keep " people, 
that everybody had to go into lodgings ; but, being of 
the self-asserting sort, we did not quite believe this, 
it sounded so incredible. We thought loe should get 
kept, if nobody else did ; and as for going into apart- 
ments to live, that was something we never would do, 
not we 1 I was strongest of all on this point. Never 
agam, so long as I live, do I wish to see my dinner 
coming into the door in a box on a man's head. Well 



234 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 

so we settled down in our comfortable rooms at the 
Watzman, as I told you ; and are not the H. H. written 
in the photograph over the very window of mine ? 
And did not the good-natured chambermaid and porter 
lug out the second bed to make a nice place for my 
writing-table ? and did I not hang up my '' Council of 
Friends" on the walls, and Paul Veronese's little St. 
John, and the dear convent of San Lazzaro, and set all 
my sixteen books in their appointed places, and say 
unto my soul, " Soul, thou hast six weeks before thee 
in this room ; it is a good place to do good work in " ? 
and that very night did not Franz tell us at tea that we 
could only have the rooms a fortnight, he thought ; that 
nobody ever stayed, everybody went into lodgings? 
Still we thought we would let things slide^ and trust to 
sticking on somehow ; at least, I did. The best part of all 

the fun is, that at this crisis, in these early days, P 

and N were a little bored with Berchtesgaden and 

intimated that they might not be contented here a month. 
*' Very well," said I, ^'you can go off to as many water- 
ing-places as you please ; out of this heavenly spot I 
do not stir for six weeks. I do not care if there be not 
a human being here to whom I can speak." People 
kept coming and going ervery day, — Grermans, chiefly ; 
now and then an English party. Nobody stayed over 
two days or three ; the house filled and emptied, and 
filled and emptied, like a railroad station. One day 
we saw the landlord send away three carriage-loads of 
people in one hour; no rooms for them! Then my 
heart sank within me ! Still I said, ''I will pay for that 
second bed which has been taken out of my room ; 
then I shall be as good as two." So I clung to hope. 

Last Friday the blow fell. The poor Franz, with 
great suffering in his face, told us that a party of court 
ladies were to arrive from Ischl Saturday night, (the 
Queen had already arrived at her villa with a large suite,) 
and that every room in the house was required. " I 
told you so, mees," he said. Yes, he had told us so, — ' 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRA VELLER. 



235 



we had nobody to blame but ourselves. In midst of 
my discomfiture, what triumph that my friends did 
not, after all, wish to leave this quiet Berchtesgaden ! 
Didn't we take an einspanner and drive to seven 
different lodging-houses, one after the other, in vain ? 
No rooms in Berchtesgaden which would do for us. 
This little town is absolutely brimful of people. At 
last I found in the house next to the hotel, only a min- 
ute's walk, two lovely rooms, which by some strange 
chance had been left unrented, — a little bedroom, and 
a corner sitting-room with four windows ! Into these 
I moved in two short hours, having all my ^' Council 
ofFriends," and my pictures, and my books, and my 
tooth-powder, and my india-rubbers carried over in a 
clothes-basket. And then I was magnanimous enough 

not to laugh at P and N , who had absolutely no 

resource left them but to drive back to Salzburg, to stay 
there a week, before they could have rooms at Ischl, 
where they had intended to go a little later ! It is only 
fourteen miles off, to be sure, and it is a beautiful place ; 
but it is a large city, and we had seen it thoroughly, 
and last, not least, it cost us fifteen francs a day at the 
hotel there, and to go back there and stay seven days 
would have been the very thing of all others which we 
should have said nothing would induce us to do. At 
first I felt a little nervous about being left all alone in 
this little German town, one word of whose language I 
cannot speak. But I wanted to stay so much that I 
decided to try it, knowing that I could jom the girls at 
any minute if I found it too lonely; thus far I enjoy it 
immensely, and think now I shall stay two Aveeks, 
while they take a look at the gayeties of Ischl, for which 
I do not hanker. I have my breakfast and tea in the 
house, and go over to the hotel for my dinner; and 
Franz, the little curly -headed ^'Special Providence " who 
speaks English, begs to be allowed to come over and 
translate for me, — " if there might be anything what 
you will like to say, mees," he tells me every day; so 



22,6 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRA VELLER, 



I am writing away at things I had wanted to do, and 
taking long walks, and reading Morris and Emerson, 
and having the novel experience of being, for the first 
time in my life, absolutely and entirely alone. It will 
only be so for a few days, however, for next week I 
expect friends from Venice, and probably some from 
Eome. In fact, it is partly because I do not want 
to miss seeing them that I stay on. Meantime I see 
more and more the reason of the landlord's not keeping 
permanent people in his house. Carriage-load after 
carriage-load they come from both ways, for a day, 
a night, a dinner. In August, Franz says the gen- 
tlemen sleep in the barn often, or camp on the hill, 
and he has four beds in my room ! And I, poor sim- 
pleton, thought perhaps I might bribe him by paying 
for two ! In the parlor and bedroom opposite mine, in 
this house, is a Grerman lady who looks so like Mrs. 
Dall I am sure she belongs to the same class of work- 
ers; she has a writing-table, too, all covered with 
papers and work just like mine. I have caught her 
'' peeking " through at mine, just as I do at hers ; I pre- 
sume we wonder equally at each other. She has two 
sons, — fine, tall fellows, students, I think, — who come 
to see her every day, and they go off for tramps to- 
gether. Now you see the mistake of my life in not 
having had the gift of tongues. If I could only speak 
G-erman, all sorts of things would happen. Among 
others, I should be able to get out of the director of the 
Salt Works, who lives in such a lovely stone house 
joining the old church opposite, all necessary informa- 
tion to make a wonderful story about the Bavarian 
salt. It is the most marvellous thing you ever heard 
of, — the way they carry this salt-water about in pipes 
from town to town, over mountains two thousand 
feet high ; sixty miles it goes on one route, — from 
Berchtesgaden through Reichenhall to Transtein. The 
other day in Reichenhall, ] saw, in a great dripping 
chamber, two wheels, forty feet high, rolling slowly 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 237 

round and round, dipping down into water under the 
floor, and working all sorts of mysterious pistons and 
things, and that is all I know about it ; but I shall go 

into the salt-mine after the Gr s come. That will 

be one thing I can see without speaking G-erman. 
But now I must tell you a little about the pictures of 
the wonderful lake Koenigsee, so that you can under- 
stand them. Look first at picture No. 1 ; that is the 
end of the lake to which we drive from Berchtesgaden 
(three miles) ; those little houses are boat-houses, 
from which you push out in a ticklish little boat, rowed 
perhaps by two women^ — there are as many women 
as men who row. You row down between those two 
points in the centre of the picture, and turn round the 
one on the right, and there you see the view which is 
given in No. 2. But you can hardly form any idea of 
the immense distance, except when I tell you that the 
little chapel of St. Bartholema, which is shown in No. 
3, is the tiny white spot which you see apparently 
near the end of the lake in No. 2. The mountains are 
all five and six thousand feet high, and there is hardly 
a spot on the lake where even a foothold could be 
got on the shore, these mountains rise so sharply from 
the water. When the king comes to hunt, the peas- 
ants drive the chamois down these steep sides into 
the water, and the royal people shoot them from boats. 
If I am here when it happens I must see it, and yet 
I shall want to shoot one shot for the chamois into 
midst of the court. the cruel thing that it is to do I 
The picture of Berchtesgaden does not give you a 
good idea of anything except the big Watzman, with 
its glacier ; you see only part of the town, and get no 
idea of the lovely sloping hills which lie all about it, 
with houses and farms set like white and green stones 
in the framing of dark lir forests. The little villa is a 
capital picture of the average style of country-seat in 
this neighborhood. Almost all have as many vines as 
this one, and they all have the projecting roofs and 



2;^S ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 

stones laid along the narrow cross-boards to hold them 
down. I meant to have sent a picture of the royal 
villa, but forgot it. That has a solid wall of woodbine 
over the lower story, and is very picturesque. But my 
letter is heavy enough now. 

I don't tell you an3^thing about Salzburg, nor about 
Innspruck, nor about the G-rand Ampezzo Pass through 
which we came up from Venice here. It was a fine 
two weeks' journey, — better even than the Cornice 
road, about which you never heard, for the luckless 
letter went nobody knows where. 0, I must tell you 
that your next letter will be from Innspruck, from the 
Schloss Wyerburg, an old hunting castle of the old 
Maximilians ! Does not that sound well ? Some ple-as- 
ant English people, friends of the S s, are board- 
ing there, and are anxious to have us join them ; so that 
is likely to be our next move; and from Innspruck 
there are many pleasant excursions, — it is nearly the 
centre of the Tyrol. I feel as if I had told you noth- 
ing in this letter. There is a wedding dance I have 
seen, and a ride all by myself in an eilwayen (omni- 
bus), and a trial of a fire apparatus here in the streets 
of Berchtesgaden, and a trip to Eeichenhall, and a din- 
ner in a garden. Why cannot one write as fast as one 
could speak 1 

Good by ; love, and love, and love to you all. 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 239 



Wild-Bad-Gastein, Austria, August 11, 1869. 

DEAE PEOPLE : I had half a mind to send you this 
month a treatise on European cookery, or pohtics, 
or anything else rather than where I am, and how I came 
so. It looks like such a tangle of a story to tell. But 
I suppose if I said I was not here, but somewhere else, 
somebody would be sure to turn up and contradict me. 
T always got found out in all the lies I ever told, and a 
good many I did n't. I dare say half of this story will 
be taken to be fiction. 

The last you heard of me was at Berchtesgaden, Ba- 
varia, leading the life of a hermit, and feasting on moun- 
tains. I think I wrote you all about the general stam- 
pede of strangers there, and the utter impossibility of 
getting rooms in the hotels. How little I thought that 
in less than two weeks I should see a place by compari- 
son with which Berchtesgaden is a roomy solitude ! But 
dear me ! 1 am giving you hints ; that spoils all. The 
last week of my stay in Berchtesgaden, however, I mast 
not forget to mention. I led anything but a hermit's 
life, having no less than twelve friends and acquaint- 
ances in the town, so that I was sorrier than ever at the 
prospect of coming away. But the girls wrote from 
Ischl, entreating me to join them at Salzburg, and 
take a run down to this Bad-G-astein before we 
went to Innspruck. G-astein I had longed to see, so I 
packed up in an hour and posted over to Salzburg ; 
and for G-astein we started on Monday morning, August 
2, — a capital pair of horses, an easy carriage, and a 
respectable old body for driver, who had been in the 
service of the Goldener Schiff ( the hotel from which we 
set off) for twenty years. How gay we were I The 



240 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRA VELLER. 

girls had so much to tell of their doings at Ischl, 
where they had been driven from pillar to post, in 
matter of rooms, just as they were at Berchtesgaden, 
but where they had managed, in a sort of Israelite 
fashion, to have a grand time ; had seen the Empress of 
Austria and her papa and mamma, and the wonderful 
little town of Hallstadt, which clings like swallows' 
nests to the mountain-side, and never sees sun above 
the mountain-tops from November 17 to February 2. 
Think of that ! I had nothing to give them in return 
for these traveller's tales except faint, shadowy sketches 

of the conversation of the Baroness von M , who 

had spent several mornings in Berchtesgaden in telling 
me about the life at court_, the experiences of her sis- 
ter-in-law who is Maid of Honor to Queen Somebody,-— 
I forget now who, — and the ways and manners of Ger- 
man people generally. The little Baroness is an Ameri- 
can, but has married an officer in the Prussian army, 
and lived seven years in G-ermany. Her head is a lit- 
tle the less steady for having so many relatives at court ; 
but she is very amusing, and has quite a fund of Ameri- 
can good sense left in her yet. Fancy the poor Maid 
of Honor having to sleep all alone in a small pavilion, 
some little distance from an insignificant and incon- 
venient villa which the Queen had seen fit to buy of a 
tailor, and live in for the summer, though it was far too 
small to accommodate her suite. At night the Queen 
says, ^' I will go at seven in the morning to take a walk." 
So by seven in the morning poor Maid of Honor must 
be at the door of the Queen's bedchamber, dressed, 
ready for the walk. No queen ! Hoar after hour passes. 
Maid of Honor can't stir, because at any moment 
Queen may come. Perhaps at eleven Queen comes 
out and says, ^^0, it is too late now, but we will take 
a drive ! " Off goes poor breakfastless Maid of Honor 
to drive for two hours ! And so it is all day ; and then 
perhaps at midnight the Queen takes a walk. It sounds 
so real when it is the Maid of Honor's sister-in-law who 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 241 

tells you. I never had any idea of it all before. Madame 
d' Arblay's Memoirs sounded as mythical to me as the 
labors of Hercules. — Well, with our queens and our 
empresses, and our maids of honor, we rolled along' over 
such a lovely road that I could tell you nothing, if I tried, 
which would make you see how it looks. The great Salz- 
burg plain is the most beautiful I ever saw, Hadley 
meadow, perhaps, enclosed in an amphitheatre of moun- 
tains eight and ten thousand feet high, with a city in 
the middle of the plain, and a great gray turreted cas- 
tle perched upon a crag in the middle of the city. It is 
all highly cultivated, — the plain, — wheat and flax and 
grass ; avenues of linden-trees cross it here and there. 
The flax was blue as the sky, the wheat was yellow, 
and much of it stacked in the queer fashion they have 
here, which is to build the stack up of tied bunches, 
^' criss cross" round a pole; three bunches at bottom 
stick down in the ground like legs, and every stack 
looks like a grotesque Esquimau. A field full of them 
in rows and squads is as funny as Beard's bears. 

At ten we reached Plallein, — a dingy, close-built littlo 
town, which looked like an Italian town baked over. 
Here we stayed four hours, and went through a salt-mine. 
Can't write that up now ; only I will mention that we 
went in at top or near the top of a mountain twelve 
hundred feet high, and we came out at bottom of 
the mountain. Yes, honor bright, we did, and I shall 
send you the pictures of it in this letter, to show you 
how we looked. They are very good pictures. Some 
of the slides down which we went, squatted on poles 
and astride the track, exactly as you will see in the 
pictures, were hundreds of feet long, and just as steep 
as they look , the first one almost took our breath away 
with terror, but after that we did not mind it. The 
most wonderful thing was the pull across that black 
lake, lit by shimmering lamps all round the outer 
edge, and the rock roof close over our heads, and we 
towed slowly over by invisible hands on the farther 



242 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRA VELLER, 

shore. It reminded me of the Car of Padalon in the 
Curse of Kehama. 

The Bloomer dresses we had to put on are made of stout 
white twilled cotton. They also give you round wool- 
len caps; but those we declined for many reaso.'is, and 
wore our own hats. Coming down from the mine into 
the town, I was so tired that I stopped a man whom I 
took to be a post driver by his top-boots and yellow 
trousers, and asked him to take me to the inn. I mean 

that ISr asked him, I seconding the appeal by the 

mute language to which I am confined in this country. I 
thought he looked uncommonly astounded at the re- 
quest ; and awful misgivings crept over me, inch by inch 
of the way, as I looked at his heavy costly gloves and 
whip, and the superior make and get up of his horses. 
" Of course," I said to myself, ''here I have been and 
gone and jumped into the wagon of a baron or an 
archduke or something, and I can't even say, ^ I am 
quite sorry, sir, but really your face is so red I took 
you for a postilion.' But he was only the Herr — some- 
thing or other which I can't spell, — and he only had to 
carry me a few rods ; Ave were not so far off as I 
thought ; and I dare say he is very glad of the story to 
tell, to illustrate the manners of American women, and 
how they don't know better than to oJBfer a gentleman 
money. 

We ate a good dinner of trout in the queer little 
stuffy dining-room of the inn, with dishes set up behind 
slats on the wall ; and I came away and forgot my 
lovely bouquet of edelweiss and cyclamen, my fare- 
well gift from the head-waiter at the Watzman in 
Berchtesgaden. Always at these G-erman inns they 
give you, when you go away, a bouquet of flowers ; 
sometimes you will see a carriage full of people driv- 
ing off with four or five beautiful bunches of flowers. 
When we left the house of the G-olden Star, kept by 
the five sisters Barbaria, in the Ampezzo Pass, at Cor- 
tina, they gave us each a bunch of the most superb 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TEA VELLER 243 

great geranium blossoms and roses, all cut from the 
plants in their dining-room. How they could have had 
the heart to cut off so many, I don't know ; though, to be 
sure, the windows looked just as full of flowers when 
we drove off as when we arrived. 

At four o'clock, Grolling. Pouring rain ! 0, how 
we chafed and fretted, for at GoUing is the waterfall ! 
" Scharzback, one of the finest in the Grerman Alps," 
said Murray, and supposed to be outlet of our dear 
Koenigsee at Berchtesgaden, and this we meant to see 
before dark. Could we drive to it? "0 yes." So I said 
resolutely, ''I shall take an einspanner and go." The 
girls went to bed, and I and my Httle dwarf man of a 
driver started off. The rain delusively held up for 
me to start; once down in the meadow, then it had 
me, and began to flood the very road. Poor Dwarf 
shifted his seat from puddle to puddle 01: the seat ; 
now and then he looked back imploringly at me ; but 
I was snugged up under the boot as dry as a chip, 
and they had told him that the dame could not speak a 
word of G-erman ; so what could he do? Then it began 
to thunder and lighten ; and the horse plunged, which 
is n't a nice thing in an einspanner. (0, I have never 
yet told you about an einspanner, I will.) At last the 
man drew up in front of a little house, or room rather, 
for beer drinking, and made signs to me that I should 
jump out ; so I did, and there I waited till the worst 
went by. A good-natured German woman came in, 
hoping to sell me beer, and we talked about the 
weather ; with my eyes and hands I talked, and a few 
ejaculatory substantives, and then I made a pun in Ger- 
man, which tickled her and the driver so that they 
roared. I said (never mind the German), '^ I wish see 
waterfall, much waterfall ! " pointing to the sky. 
Waterfall in German is " wasser fall " ; that 's how 3 
happened to know it, it is so like the English. Then 
they both began to talk German to me in torrents ; 
and 1 was glad to escape into the carriage. The man 



244 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 

led the horse up a gully road for quarter of a mile, and 
then stopped and said I was to walk the rest of the 

way 

Monday^. August \Q. — This letter is sure to be the 
worst I ever sent you, dear souls. It is a kind of wash- 
ing-day-dinner letter. You '11 eat it because you can't 
get any other, and you won't be as hungry as if you 
had eaten nothing; but don't we all hate Monday din- 
ners ? Now you see there is nothing left of that water- 
fall, for since August 11, when I began this letter, 
I 've cooked it for a newspaper ! It fitted and slipped 
in so naturally into a letter I was writing J could not 
resist the temptation to serve it hot a la carte to those 
customers, and this is all you '11 get of it, unless you 
look up the waiter who carried it off. But nobody 
else but you will be told how funny it all was when we 
did really reach G-astein. It was at noon of Wednes- 
day. We began to grow nervous as we drew near the 
town, because we had had no answer to our telegram 
for rooms ; and the minute we drove into the httle Platz 
before the Straubinger Hotel we had an instinct that 
there was a clear case for Mr. Malthus in this town. A 
pompous fellow in a white waistcoat met us. Yes, he 
had received our telegram. Sorry he could not give us 
rooms in the house. He had taken them for us in the 
Schloss, the great stone house opposite. So we drove up 
the side of a house, — 1 mean hill, but it was as steep, 
— and faced the proprietor there. Big man, big hall, big 
blackboard with numbers of the rooms in the house, 
and the occupants' names written in chalk on it ! Yes, 
the landlord of Straubinger had taken a room for us ; 
this was it. ^' No. 16, Lord Cavendish " ! Now if any- 
thing in this world could be plain, one would think it 
might be the fact that three American women were 

not '^Lord Cavendish"; but for half an hour poor N 

and the landlord bowed and jabbered to each other in 
vain to clear up this point. Back we drove to the 
hotel again. Yes, that was our room. Lord Caven- 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 245 

dish ^^ould not arrive till Saturday. We timidly said 
that we had telegraphed for three rooms, and that 
however double or triple Lord Cavendish might be, and 
yet be satisfied with one room, we wanted three. At 

last we got one more, a flight higher up ; P and \ 

took the noble lord's apartment, and N went up 

stairs. A very fine room ours was ; four windows, two 
beds, and wardrobes and tables and secretaries in 
quantity. But such a noise ! It was over the water- 
fall. A waterfall three hundred feet high, in the very 
centre of the town, is the most picturesque thing I ever 
saw ; but the effect of it on the human ear is some- 
thing not to be endured. You feel as if you had just 
got into New York in twenty steamboats, and they 
were all letting off steam at once under your stateroom 
window. '' Well, Lord Cavendish," said we, " you are 
welcome to your room on Saturday morning. English 
nerves may stand this racket better than American." 

In the night P and I called out to each other, 

*' Are you awake ? don't you think it gets louder every 
minute ? " We felt as if we were part of it, at last, 
and going down head-foremost over rocks. Breakfast 
and tea in our room, not bad; dinner over at the Hotel 
Straubingers at one o'clock for a florin, at three o'clock 
for two florins ; being bent on economy, we went 
at one. Babel let loose ! Why people talk about 
American tables dliote I can't imagine; we don't make 
half so much noise, nor make knives fly in and out 
of throats, nor do some other things which G-ermans 
do, but which I could not even bring myself to write. 
We are much more civilized than I supposed we were 
in comparison with the peoples I have seen thus far. 
Not a window open ; a German would think he was 
sure to die, with an open window at his back. One 
hundred people in a room which ought to hold only 
fifty. A narrow plank-wide table in the middle, and 
one a little broader all round the room. Hungarian to 
right of you, Russian in front, French and Grerman to 



246 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 

left, and English silence just beyond. Waiters bring- 
ing, first, soup, with watery bread in it; roast beef^ 
done black, and swimming in gravy, and cucumbers 
served with it ; junks of fat bacon, and an indescriba- 
ble bean-mush served with that ; roast veal, and stewed 
plums to eat with that ; and then fried griddle-cakes, 
chopped up and spooned out for dessert. That is the 
wholesome and nourishing dinner you get at Strau- 
binger's for one florin. There are other hotels here, 
worse At three o'clock, for two florins you get 
several more courses, and a good deal of fol-de-rol for 
dessert ; but it is all of a piece, and you may as well 
save your extra florin, and spend it for fruit at the 
peasant woman's stand opposite the hotel. We cruised 
about town ; smelt and tasted of all the hot springs and 
cold, poked into the cavern where some of them are 
dripping, got drenched with the waterfall, looked at 
all the booths and things to sell and went to bed, hav- 
ing engaged our driver to take us back to Salzburg on 
Saturday morning. On Friday afternoon I was attacked 
with a sore-throat. Saturday morning, no better. 
Lord Cavendish impending. G-ustav, the kind and 
pompous head-man at Straubinger's, in despair. I bun- 
dle up, and go over to small room in his hotel ; girls in 
another. Sunday morning, no better. Driver behaved 
like a villain, refused to release us from our bargain, 
and insisted on being paid ten dollars a day while he 
waited. Of course I could not get better in such a 
state of things ; five English people coming to take 
these rooms on Monday morning. Never, I think, in 
all my life did it appear to me so inconvenient and 
perplexing a thing that I should exist as for a few 
hours that Sunday morning. At last I made a cowp 
detat. I conspired with the good angel of a doctor ; 
engaged a room in the priest's house, a few doors from 
the hotel, and then told the girls I should stay two 
weeks and they must go. I knew, as far as one can 
know anything, that I should be entirely well in two 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 247 

or three days. I wanted to see more of Grastein, and 
I promised to telegraph to them mstantly if I were not 
so well. The doctor speaks English perfectly. I knew 
that friends from New Haven were coming in a day or 
two, and I was sure I should never get well so long as 
I felt that I w^as keeping my friends here, and we were 
paying ten dollars a day lor the rascally driver. It 
was hard to make them go, but I succeeded ; and in less 
than twenty-four hours after they left I was quite 
well ; the third day I walked all over town. I hurry 
to this consummation of the story, because I know just 
with what dismay you will have been reading the last 
page. Now I will go back and give the picture of the 
days a little touchmg up. Sunday afternoon I moved 
down to the priest's house, — one of the nicest in town, 
and crowded full of lodgers ; only just this one de- 
lightful front room vacated for me the day before, and 
to be vacant just three days, and no more, — just the 
length of time which must pass before the dear doctor 
could give me a room in his own house. All things 
seemed to work so singularly that I began to feel 
as resigned as a log, waiting to see into what corner I 
should drift next. The girls came down and took tea 
with me in my new quarters, and I was all unpacked 
and in order in an hour. At nine o'clock a tap at my 
door, and there stood the sweetest-faced, saddest- 
faced girl, perhaps seventeen or eighteen years old, 
but hopelessly dwarfed and deformed. " I heard that 
you were English and did not speak German, and I 
came to see if there were anything I could say for you 
xo the maid before bedtime," said she, in the gentlest, 
but most pathetic voice I ever heard. Do you suppose 
you can any of you have an idea how I felt at that 
moment? ^ did not know till then that I had had 
a shade of misgiving about being alone ; but by the 
warm rush into my cheeks and eyes at sight of her I 
found out that I had. I think I shall never see any 
face which will look to me so beautiful as does the 



v^S ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 

face of that poor dwarf girl ; but it is not beautiful at 
all. The next morning she came and sat with me for 
a long time, and I have seen her every day since. 
She is a Hungarian Her father is the president of the 
highest tribunal at Pesth, and he is here for his health. 
Her mother is one of the most glorious specimens of 
what a woman can be at forty-five I have ever seen. 
Think of her walking last week up the Gamskogel and 
back, — nine hours of hard and even perilous climbing ; 
and she laughed when I asked her if she were not 
tired. They urged me to join the party and go on 
horseback, — several members of it (all Hungarian) 
speaking English well, she said, — but I dared not try it 
even on a horse. How can one keep that tenth com- 
mandment in presence of such strength as this ! Legs 
and languages ! Let nobody expect to be happy in 
Europe without two very strong specimens of the one, 
and at least four of the other. I could not tell you if I 
tried how kind and lovable and bright these people 
are. I have always heard that the Hungarian nature 
was a rarely fine and sensitive one, and since I have 
known this mother and daughter I can easily believe it. 
There is a subtle something in their atmosphere I never 
before found, and cannot put into words; a fine 
aroma of soul all the while making beautiful the small- 
est word or gesture. The radiant tenderness with 
which the mother looks every moment at the daughter 
whose life is so blighted, and the brave gayety and love 
with which Jozsa looks back. I forget to speak some- 
times, watching the marvel of it. Jozsa has studied 
English but six months, and she speaks well and under- 
stands all T say. This puts me to such shame when I 
think of my six months in Italy, and that to-day I 
could not do more in Italian than perhaps to order a 
dinner or dispute with a cochiere. Well, there were 
three days at the priest's house ; dainty breakfasts and 
teas served by the most ruffled and linen-clad of house' 
keepers ; horrible dinners sent down in layers of stone' 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TEA VELLER, 



249 



china from Straubinger's ; long talks with Jozsa, and 
sametimes four or five calls a day from the kindly 
doctor, who, having only sixty patients to see each day, 
is so running over with benevolence and good- will that 
he is constantly doing odd jobs of helping for every- 
body he can find in need of him. " Is there anything 
] can order for you ? " he would cry out almost before 
opening the door, and down stairs again before I had 
half said, " No, thank you." Then it would be a book, 
then a newspaper, and then my letters and papers, for 
they took to coming, too, just at this crisis in my affairs. 
Ah ! you need n't suppose those three days in the 
house of the G-astein cure were dreary. I spent half 
the time lying on the sofa, and looking out over the 
waterfall at the mountain wall to the west ; green to 
the very top, and so high, the sky seems resting on it 
like a ceiling. I ought to have written, but I did not, 
and that is the reason your letter is late. 

On Thursday I moved again, — the fourth lodging in 
a week, — up to the house of the good doctor. He was 
much concerned, because in the priest's house I had been 
somewhat sumptuously bestowed (for G-astein and his 
simplicity), and in his house I was to come to an attic 
chamber and plainer furnishings, and he did not know 
me well enough to be sure I would not miss the gilt 
curtain-fixtures and the big looking-glass. I could see 
some distress in his face as he ran up stairs before me, 
carrying a lovely little rosebush in his hand, which he 
set on my window-sill. Ah, if I had not been satisfied ! 
An attic room, to be sure, and only a bed and bureau 
and washstand and lounge, and two tables in it ; but 
from each window such mountains to be seen as I have 
never yet looked on. This G-astein is almost at end of 
roads! You can drive four miles farther to Bockstein, 
and there the mountains close in like an army of giants, 
and there is no more going that way, except on horse- 
back or on foot, through dangerous and difficult passes. 
Four of these mountains I see from my windows ; from 
11* 



2 50 EN€YCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 

my writing-table I look down on the whole town ; for 
I forgot to tell you that the house is high up above 
everything, a quarter of the way up the west wall of 
the G-astein valley. It only takes me ten minutes to 
walk down to Straubinger's ; but it is all the way like 
going down stairs. 

Then came Marie the housekeeper, and kissed my 
hand ; and she, too, brought a rose with her, and a few 
forget-me-nots. Then I hung six of you, dear people, 
up over my writing-table, and sat down, and that was 
the beginning of my fourth era of Gastein ! Since then 
I have had more perturbations of another kind, which T 
cannot tell in a letter, they being too long and stupid ; 
having relation only to telegraph messages and missing 
relatives. In short, the story is : letter on Saturday 
night from my dear sister, in Salzburg, giving no ad- 
dress of hotel ! all Sunday spent in vain attempts to 
telegraph to her there ; finally I am rewarded by the 

information that Madame H had been there, but 

gone, and left her trunk at the Bankers Trauner. 
This is the advantage of being of one family ! I being 

the Madame H who had left a trunk in charge of 

the Bankers Trauner ; and my sister being all the while 
sitting quiet and unhappy in the Hotel Nelboeck, quite 
unaware that she never dated her letter. At last, late 
at night, I get track of her through Dr. Proell's brother, 
who lives in Salzburg, and to whom the doctor had tele- 
graphed to go to all hotels in the city and look her up. 
But I am not much happier than before ; the message 
is, ^' We leave for Munich to-morrow morning." Such 
are the contingencies and vicissitudes, my dear people, 
of being '' round loose " in this part of the world. 
How would you like it? To see your dearest friends 
whisked off in that way from under your nose and eyes 
is a test of one's patience. If my sister had dated her 
letter I should have taken post-horses and dashed down 
to Salzburg to see her ; but as the postmark of the 
letter was the oi?ly proof I had of her being there, T 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 251 

had not quite courage to go on the venture, not being 
yet able to speak more than two thousand words of 
German. 

Tuesday Eve^ August 17. — Who ever thought I 
should live to do what I have been doing to-night, and 
who ever could guess what it is? Lighting candles in 
honor of the Emperor of Austria's birthday ! Ah, my 
people, if you could but have seen the little town an 
hour ago, and the Yilla Proell, — for that is what we on 
this height are called. Every house in town was gayly 
lit from roof to cellar, and rockets going up among the 
fir-trees, and I patting about the village with the doc- 
tor looking at it all. We were very proud of our 
house, which was by far the gayest, having lights on 
the balconies behind the lattice-work, and at every 
window, and having the Austrian flag at one corner 
and the Hungarian at the other. J lit the candles on 
the upper balcony and at my windows with my own 
hands, just to say that I did it, not out of any love 
for the Emperor. But the waterfall was the wonder 
of the night ; it is one of the sights I shall never for- 
get, — lit at bottom by a fiery red light and at top by a 
brilliant blue. Can you try to fancy how a foaming 
cascade three hundred feet high would look, lit with 
blue and red, the foam sparkling off like stars of a 
rocket, and the fir-trees standing out in the glow, as if 
they were drawn with a fiery pencil on the sky? 
Then the moon came up from behind one of the moun- 
tains and gave an atmosphere of peace to the whole. 
Yery thrifty are the good G-erman people, though, with 
all their patriotism; they are beginning already to blow 
out the candles, and it is not nine o'clock ; here comes 
the servant past my window blowing out ours. T do 
not think more than three inches of the candles have 
been burnt up. 

Now I shall give you an exact list of the things 
which are suspended on the front of this house. You 
will not believe me, but it will be true. Nobody 



252 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 



could believe, till they saw it, the childlikeness of these 
Germans. From first balcony, a yellow fuzzy hearth- 
rug, on top of it a flower-pot with gay paper round it 
and an imitation lemon-tree in it. From second bal- 
cony, a blue and white tablecloth; pinned in cen- 
tre of the tablecloth something cut out of colored 
paper, which I take to be a coat of arms ; above table- 
cloth, a white sheet on a frame^ with F. J. in large 
gilt-paper letters ; above these, on the white sheet, two 
worsted mats, one crimson and one green (a pres- 
ent to the doctor from an English lady yesterday, for 
his birthday is also to-day). These have a very strik- 
ing effect as an outdoor decoration. On the third 
balcony, a black and yellow tablecloth, the Austrian 
flag in one corner, with a green bough at end of it and 
the Hungarian flag in the other corner. ' Now, do you 
believe me ? Because if you don't T will tell you some- 
thing droller still. Last night the doctor and his 
brother, and brother's wife, and Baroness Strauss, who 
are visiting him, had a small festivity in honor of his 
birthday, and this morning he sent up to my room two 
of the adornments of his office on the occasion. One 
was a wreath of purple thistles, and the other was 
a large oval of white paper wreathed with oats, plan- 
tain-leaves, may- weed, and grass, with two small car- 
rots, tops and all, at bottom. Ophelia herself could not 
have tied up anything crazier. In the centre of this a 
shockingly bad photograph of the doctor, and around 
it written, '^ This likeness is considered beautiful, Don 
Juan." Now, if you do not believe this, I cannot 
tell you anything more. I for my part, am heartily 
in love with their simple-heartedness, and I feel so 
ashamed of myself to have outgrown thistle-wreaths 
and carrots and tablecloths. It is a new experience 
for me to see people pleased with even smaller things 
than please me. 

Wednesday^ August 18. — Really now, dear souls, 
the letter must go. I know it is a patchwork, and 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 25^ 

I am afraid to look at the seams. I am at end of 
my paper too, and have cribbed these last sheets from 
Dr. Proell's office. I ought to tell you more about 
him, but it would be a tale by itself. I have just come 
from dinner, and he has given me a little German 
verse which his brother wrote, as part of the birthday 
sport; his brother is the first advocate in Linz, and as 
clever in his profession as Dr. Grustave in his. 

"If in high heaven happy saints had need 
Of some good, wise, and faithful soui 
For doctor, God would surely send with speed 

For this dear man, Gustavus Proell. 
But since in heaven haste is not allowed, 

And since to blessed sweet Gastein 
The sick of nations come in yearly crowd, 
God leaves him here. But if Divine 
Compassion could but see how o'er the roads he springs. 
He quickly would provide him with a pair of wings." 

What do you think of my progress in German, my first 
effort at translation? For a six weeks' scholar is it 
not good, considering that my only teachers have been 
waiters, chambermaids, and landlords ? How stupid to 
waste room on such nonsense ! Of course I only trans- 
lated it by having it read to me. Now do you have 
an idea of how I am getting naturalized here ? I should 
take root in Germany much more easily than in Italy, 
with all its beauty. This morning I have been with 

Miss S to hear the grand mass for the Emperor, in 

the little stone chapel of St. Nicolai, which you will see 
in the picture. There were two grand dignitaries there 
with the Order of the Golden Fleece. If I had only 
known it beforehand I would have looked harder at 
them ; but as it was, I looked at a poor peasant woman 
who knelt on the stone floor by their side from begin- 
ning to end of the mass. Afterwards we drove up to- 
wards the Kotschackthal, w^hich you will also see. It 
is a delight to send you these pictures. I wonder I 
never thought of it before ; when I come home it will 
be such a pleasure to me to see them again. I only 



2 54 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 

wish I could spend twenty dollars a month in photo- 
graphs and brmg home all the places I see. 

Here comes Marie the housekeeper with a little 
bunch of flowers for me, because it is the 18th of Au- 
gust, day of St. Helena, and the doctor has told her 
it is my "name-day," as they call it. Mane is an old 
family servant, in whose arms the doctor's mother 
died, and she keeps house for him, and looks after his 
interests^ as if he were a child of her own. She is 
always, so far as I can judge, either lockmg up or un- 
lockmg some of his goods. Grood by, and good by, 
with love and love. 



Bad-Gastein^ Sunday morning, September 5, 1869. 

DEAREST PEOPLE : Behold me still in Gastein. 
Shall I ever go away ? The Fates have it settled, 
I suppose ; but I should not dream of saying that I 
knew I should do anything so against nature as to 
leave this eagle's-nest. Rooms are engaged for the 

S s and for me at the Bayerischer Hof, in Munich, 

on Monday, the 13th of September. A good man with 
an einspanner is engaged to take me to Salzburg next 
Friday and Saturday ; but whether I go or not I shall 
doubt up to the last minute. Think of coming to stay 
four days, and staymg five weeks. It has been a 
lesson to me in the matter of clothes ; my black trav- 
elling dress has come to be to me as much like my skin 
as if I were a chamois and it were my fur ; to be sure, 
my wrapper has come out at both elbows, and the 
washerwomen have torn each of my two nightgowns. 
There are inconveniences attending the living for five 
weeks in the clothing intended for four days, it must be 
owned; but to have found out that one can do it is 
something. I find myself thinking with some dismay 
of the big trunk of superfluous things I own in Salz- 
burg. 

Now what shall I tell you about since I have to 
write a second letter from G-astein ? Did I put in all 
the mountains and the waterfalls in my last letter? 
Bless their grand old laces ! if I wrote you a letter 
every day and all about them, I should never get them 
in. They are never twice alike. Yesterday they were 
so cold and stern that it would have been easy to be 
afraid. To-day they are so soft and warm that they 
bring tears into my eyes. If they look like this the day 



256 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 

I go away it will break my heart. I must put more 
pictures into this letter to try and show you a little 
more of this wonderful blessed spot. But there is no 
picture of the view I want most to send you, and that 
is the view from the balconies of this house. I do not 
sleep on the balcony, but that is the only thing I do not 
do on it. I live and move and have my being on it. 
The town is at my feet, — that you can understand from 
the picture ; but you cannot understand how the oppo- 
site side of the valley — that is, the east wall — looks, and 
that is the glory of all. It is the whole of a mountain, 
and to the south and north of it are other mountains, 
and they have their feet braced and interlocked with 
each other in that wonderful way which mountains 
have, whereby are made depths of valleys and ravine 
beds for streams. Into three such valleys — no, not 
into them, but across them — I look now ; they come 
down at nearly right angles into the Gastein and the 
Bockstein valley ; and to-day they are all so flooded 
with sun, that way up, almost to the very top, I can 
see the shadow of each fir-tree thrown on the ground. 
We have not had so delicious a sun for a week; my 
feet are toasting in it at this moment as before a wood- 
fire. I am afraid I shall have to draw them in from the 
lattice-work of the balcony (which makes my best 
cricket), for I think the thermometer would be about 
110° just at my toes; and yet the air is so cool that I 
like a shawl, or even a waterproof, over my shoulders; 
and at six o'clock to-night I shall have a wood-fire in 
my stove. 

0, how shall I tell you about this opposite h'lllside ! 
It cries out to me to let it alone, that not even an 
artist could paint it, it is enough that it is ; but I am 
restless with my desire to make you see it. It is 
eight thousand feet high, to begin with. At top it 
is bald and bleak, many days snowy ; but, so far up that 
I cannot distinguish the points of the fir-trees, it is 
green, green as a field of spring wheat. Fancy it ! Half 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 257 

forest, half pasture ; little brown threads of fence lining 
it off here and there, and here and there a little brown 
house or barn. One third of the way up is a small 
white house, the Windischgratz Cafe. Up to that I 

climbed, day before yesterday, with poor little E 

K carried in a trag-sessel (sedan-chair). Ever since 

I have been here it has been beckoning me up there, but 
the day never came for it until Friday. I thought I knew 
how high it was; but when I got there and looked 
down into the valley of Hof-Grastein on one side, and 
Bockstein on the other, and saw all the village of my 
G-astein in a little confused dark mass at my feet, 
and the Villa Proll, which I thought in the clouds, 
down almost out of sight under a wood, then I found 
out how high the Windischgratz Coffee-house is ; and 
now you can remember that I tell you that it is cer- 
tainly not more than one third of the way up the 
mountain wall, out on which I look all day ; and, re- 
membering this, can you begin to see what I see ? In 
the early morning, when the sun is but just above it, it 
is all in soft mist, great broad beams of mist such as we 
see when we say " the sun is drawing water." Until 
eleven o'clock I always think that this is its most 
beautiful time ; then it is in clear sun, and I can count 
every shadow of every tree, and almost see down to 
the very roots of the trees in the forests, and I think 
that is the most beautiful time ; and then in the late 
afternoon, when it darkens again, and the fir-trees look 
black and the fields look gray, I think that is the most 
beautiful time. This is the way with lovers. Do you 
not pity me that I go away ? If I do not suffer a little 
at first, like a transplanted tree, it will be strange. 
Have you any wonder what I do in this valley that I 
love it so ? I should think you would have, but I am 
afraid I shall be as puzzled as the fir-trees to tell. 
In the morning at seven, Marie, the housekeeper, 
comes and gives a shadowy little knock at my door, 
thinking perhaps I may be asleep, though she has 

Q 



258 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 

never yet found me so in all these four weeks. She 
comes in with a jingle like a sleigh, for she has the 
keys of everything hanging at her waist. '^ Kiss the 
hand, madame," she says. ''Slept well? 0, good, 
good! " and ''Fine weather," she adds, if she can, and 
if she can't, she holds her tongue like a Christian, 
and don't mention the weather at all. Then I tell her 
what I will have for breakfast, and as I lumber out 
the words worse and worse each time, she says, 
*' Ah ! madame speaks very good Dutch, very good." 
Meantime, Irma, who is the little chambermaid, has 
brought me two enormous great brown jugs of water, 
and a wooden tub, and a decanter of the warm spring- 
water, with which I am trying faithfully to treat my 
throat; the dear enthusiast Dr. ProU having assured 
me over and over that if I will only gargle the throat 
with this water several times a day, I will never, no, 
never, have another sore-throat. Believing that my 
'• chief end " was to have sore-throats, and not believ- 
ing very firmly in any kind of mineral waters, I naturally 
do not remember to gargle my throat so many times a 
day as I might ; so when the next sore-throat arrives, 
Dr. ProU will be entitled to the benefit of the doubt 
as to whether it would have come if Gastein water had 
been faithfully used. Breakfast comes in on a tray 
covered with a snow-clean napkin, — tiny little white 
teapot of tea, tinier white teapot of hot water, baby- 
house pitcher of milk, — teapot has a silver strainer at 
nose, and is as pretty as a picture; but the nose is all 
wrong, and the tea runs anywhere but in the strainer. 

"I wish one thing to the man that has made these 
teapots," says Dr. Proll, "that he might be condemned 
for two thousand of years to do a pour out of one of 
them." 

Besides the tea, I have a glass of milk, which Marie 
has strained into the tumbler the night before, so there 
is thick cream on the top; a plate of "house bread," 
which is brown and hard, and has anise seeds in it ; a 



ENCYCLICALS 01 A TRAVELLER, 259 

plate of white bread, which is as good as anything which 
is not home-made bread can be; a saucer of raspberries 
or blueberries, or an e.^^g^ and the last evening Post ; — 
that is my breakfast. After breakfast, Marie comes to 
take the tray, then I pay for my breakfast, and make 
her laugh at my German numerals, as I insist on add- 
ing it all up myself How much does it cost ? Butter, 
7 kreutzers ; milk, 6 ; bread, 7 ; tea, 20 ; raspberries, 8, 
— 48 kreutzers in all, — and a kreutzer is, as near as I 
can make out, about three fifths of a cent. Then, when 
I have paid for my breakfast, comes the ordering of 
dinner; this takes dictionary, and Marie and I have 
great fun over it. There is n't much more variety about 
my dinners than about my gowns. So far as the meat 
is concerned, it is beefsteak or chicken ; then on many 
days comes what Marie calls " ros-bif," and that is 
simply beefsteak cut from another part of the ox and 
cooked the same way. They call nothing a steak, 
except what we call " porter-house steaks." I have 
now brought Marie to the point of being able to bake 
potatoes, boil rice, and broil a steak '^ rare " ; so I con- 
sider myself a missionary to the good doctor's kitchen. 
After Marie is disposed of I settle down in my corner 
of the balcony, and read or write all the morning ; 
then I take a walk, and then comes dinner at one or 
at two. Sometimes the dinner is in the doctor's office, 
because just at present a very grand Hungarian countess 
has the saloon ; sometimes it is in the " pavilion." 
That sounds grand. Well, now that the woodbine has 
turned to crimson and yellow and white, it is grander 
than any royal pavilion in the world ; but except for 
the woodbine it is only a little rough wooden house 
with two sides open, a plank floor over the rock, and 
wooden chairs and a table. To-day we dined there, 
and the sun shone through the wall of woodbine, filling 
the air with reds which cannot be uttered. 

While we are dining, come messengers from the 
north, south, east, and west, to call the doctor ; never 



26o ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 

yet have I seen him left ten minutes uninterrupted. 
'•' Ah ! " he says, '' at the gate St. Peter will say, ' Who 
are you ? ' 'I have been physician at G-astein.' 
' Then you can come in immediately ; you need not go 
to purgatory. You have had it already ! ' " 

After dinner a snatch of G-erman legend, or an ex- 
perience from Dr. ProU's own life, which is all like a 
legend ; and then he is ojQf again for the rest of the day 
and most of the night. This wonderful man, fifty- 
three years old, walks seven and eight hours a day, 
seeing patients, and talks sometimes with sixty people 
in one day, for all the peasants flock to him ; runs 
this lodging-house with only a faithful old house- 
keeper to help him ; keeps all the meteorological 
records of G-astein; writes till midnight and after; 
and then is up, and down in the town at 5 a. m., to see 
to people in the vapor-bath ! It is such a pity that 
some story-wright should not have had this month 
under Dr. Proll's roof that I have had ; it would make 
a good foundation for a novel. But I have been so 
stupid, I have sat dreaming away over the mountains 
and have not written out the stories I have heard and 
the people I have seen ; and next week will come 
Munich and pictures, and then Vienna and more pic- 
tures, and the woodbine pavilion will fade away. That is 
the thing that grieves one most in Europe, that the pic- 
tures will, in spite of you, wipe each other out. Venice 
has grown dim already. I see that by the time I come 
home these letters will be as interesting to me as they 
can ever have been to you. Well, in the afternoon is 
either a drive or a walk, and then the sunset, and then 
bed, after another season with Marie on the subject of 
supper, — which consists, if I am frugal, of bread and 
butter and milk ; if I am extravagant, of trout and 
bread and butter and beer. 

This is all there is to a day at G-astein, but when I 
go away next Friday, I shall have spent thirty-five 
such days in perfect content; and if I acted out my 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 261 

heartiest impulse I should stay thirty-five more. How 
many of you will understand it, I wonder, that with 
Munich and Vienna on the '' boards," I cling to G-as- 
tein ? Nobody of you all, except you who have been 
with me at Bethlehem. 

Yesterday we went to Bockstein, the little village 
three miles farther up the valley, or rather three miles 
farther on, in a valley of its own, which used, like this 

G-astein valley, to be a lake. " We " means Mrs. K , 

and her poor little daughter E , who cannot walk. 

Miss S , their cousin, and I, in a big carriage ; and 

Dr. Proll and Mr. H in an einspanner. I cannot tell 

you about the machinery of the gold-mill, which was 
what we went to see, for I do not remember the names of 
the " things " ; but if I could only make you see the old 
water-wheels which are standing still there I Beally 
they look as if Shem, Ham, and Japhet had set them up 
in the days of the beginning of water-privileges, and 
had soon got tired of the business and sold out. Black, 
crumbling, and moss-grown, there the wheels stand and 
drip, drip, drip, — for the water still runs, as it ran in 
the days when the Weitmosers worked the gold-mine, 
through big water-pipes and sluices through the mid- 
dle of the village. You can see, in the picture of the 
village, that in the middle of it the houses all seem to 
join ; that is where the gold-mill and the long galleries 
and Avater-pipes are. All the machinery looked as if 
it were aching to fall apart, so old and so tired ! It 
seemed somehow unchristian to let it stay unburied. 
An old workman went about with us and explained 
where the gold-stones were broken, and where the 
quicksilver was put in pans, and where it was all 
melted over fire. Above the furnace was an old dial- 
plate like a clock, with figures and hands to mark the 
heat which the metal had reached in boiling, — how 
more than mute it looked ! — and on the edges of the 
furnace were mouldy fungus growths. After this was 
over, being in Germany, we thought of eating, and 



262 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 

drew up before the little inn. Carriages were stand- 
ing in the yard, and people drinking beer round tables 
in front of the windows. 

Could we have trout? No. Chicken? No. Beef- 
steak ? No. What could we have ? Veal and eggs. 
The strangers from G-astein had eaten up everything 
else which the Bockstein inn possessed. Yeal and 
eggs are the two staple delights of the German stom- 
ach; the veal steaming with fat and mustard, and the 
eggs horrible with butter and garlic. Ugh ! All my 
lite I shall remember the egg-salad which dear Marie 
added to our dinner yesterday, and of which I tasted, 
to appear civil, but was positively obliged to swallow 
hastily, like calomel, by help of great mouthfuls of 
beer. I thought I had tasted of bad things in Italy, 
but I give Germany the unquestioned palm. I am 
anxious to know whether the great students and think- 
ers of Germany eat the same sorts of food which I have 
seen in Berchtesgaden and Gastein. If they do, it is 
plain that for the German nation has been made by the 
Creator some peculiar and especial provision by which 
brains are independent of stomachs ; yet dyspepsia is a 
rare disease here. 

After we had to abandon the idea of a supper at the 

inn, Dr. Proll took me in the einspanner, and the K 

party drove back disconsolate to Gastein ; but I — ah, 
where did I go then ? To the end of civilized roads, 
up, up, up, through the ravine that you see in the 
picture, to the very end of the road. It was the wildest 
spot I have ever seen. Look carefully at the picture, 
and there will be no need of my describing it. Be- 
yond this, there is no getting out of this valley except 
by two very dangerous passes, on foot or on horse- 
back, over into Carinthia. By one of these, Venice can 
be reached in three days and a half, my guide-book 
says. I think it means three years and a half I 
know I am no nearer than that to the Grand Canal and 
Luigi. 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 263 

Here comes Marie with a moss-basket full of forget- 
me-nots and crimson adonis and strawberry-leaves. 
Marie is a weather-beaten old woman of fifty, but she 
has youth in her soul for flowers. Everywhere that 
she can set a pot she has flowers growing, and fine 
fuchsias in among her beets ! The garden, which is a 
collection of bits of soil tucked in among rocks and on 
steps, is her special province, and twinkles in the sun 
like her own quick-winking eyes. I always think, 
when I look out of my window, that it is going up 
the hill, and will be out of sight presently, there is so 
much more staircase to it than anything else. Wild 
ferns and pink heath are here and there in unreclaimed 
corners of it, and great piles of mossy rock, with fir- 
trees, and the pavilion, and a tent, and an arbor, and a 
sun-dial, and a barometer, and a rain-measurer, and I 
do not know what not. And Marie's sister, who is 
a rough peasant, but is a true clairvoyant, and has 
given the doctor most wonderful experimental tests 
of the " Od," — doing and saying and revealing things 
which she no more understood than if she had spoken 
in G-reek, — is always to be seen groping about pur- 
poselessly and giving little pulls to the beets and peas 
and potatoes, as if she were pulling invisible wires and 
sounding bells beneath. She never pulls them up, so 
far as I can see. The doctor says, ^' She likes to do 
it." How much he pays her a week for this work I 
have not asked. She has her face bound up in a white 
handkerchief, and wears list shoes which make no 
noise. Marie always gives her a shove, I notice, when 
she comes near her, and this is all I perceive. But I 
ought to tell about Marie. Eighteen years ago she 
was a patient of the doctor's here in Qastein. At the 
same time a very poor old woman was dying in a hut 
here, of a horrible disease. When the doctor told Marie 
of her, she went instantly to the hut, and (sick herself) 
stayed and nursed the old woman till she died. The old 
woman lay on straw. Marie, when she lay anywhere, 



264 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 

lay on the bare boards of the top of a chest. From 
that day Marie has been the protector of the sick and 
dying of the doctor's family. Slie went to Venice, 
and for several years nursed a paralytic uncle who 
could not even feed himself. He died in her arms. 
Then she went to Nice and nursed his brother through 
three years' dying of consumption ; he died in her arms. 
Then his mother last of all, and she, with almost her 
last breath, blessed Marie. Now Marie will never 
leave the doctor himself, and so strong is her passion 
for nursing, that I believe in the bottom of her heart 
she feels a kind of divine satisfaction when she sees the 
last illness approaching. I know she took more com- 
fort in a sore-throat that I had for two days than in 
anything else that has happened since I came. She 
has given her whole heart to me, because I am the 
'' only lady she ever had in the house who was as nice 
as a gentleman ! " This sounds like equivocal praise, 
but it is not. She loves me because she sees that she 
pleases me in all her ways. Every day she makes 
some new kind of G-erman pudding for dinner, and 
eyes me like a hawk while I take the first mouthful ; 
and every day, now she knows I am going away, she 
sighs and says, "It will be sorrow to Marie when 
madame goes." So I add her to Marianina in w^j book 
of remembrance ; and, if it came to being sick, I should 
like Marianina to look at, but Marie to take care of 
me. On the 18th of August (that was the day after 
the Emperor's birthday, and the illumination, etc., of 
which I wrote you), Marie came in to dinner bringing 
a bunch of roses and forget-me-nots, and laid them by 
my plate, looking shyly at the doctor, who explained 
for her, ^' Marie thinks to give you a pleasure because 
it is your najne day." It seems that in G-ermany the 
Cathohcs think more of the day which is called by the 
name of the saint whose name you bear, than they 
do of your birthday. 18th of August, I shall never 
forget now, is " St. Helen's" day. (G-lad there 's been a 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 265 

St. Helen already, because one of a name is enough. 
So I need not — ) But next St. Helen's day there will 
be no Marie to bring me roses and forget-me-nots. 
How the forget-me-nots hold on here ! You can't 
imagine ! They flower and flower, and grow and grow : 
there does n't seem to be any die to them. I have had 
them in a tumbler for ten days at a time, growing 
taller and taller, and as blue at the last as at the be- 
ginning. 

Wednesday^ ^th. — There is nothing new to tell you 
to-day, except what the sun did this morning. At 
seven o'clock the whole valley was filled dense and 
thick with solid white clouds ; it fairly seemed to roll 
in between the slats of the lattice-work of my balcony. 
I have seen nothing like it before. Newport's densest 
is not so white, so solid. All of a sudden it ht up as 
if fires were kindled behind it. The sun had got fairly 
up over the mountain, and was driving all before him. 
In a few moments there began to come rifts in it, through 
which I could see bits of fir-wood and pasture on the 
mountains, gleaming with sunshine. Then the tops of 
the mountains came out clear, and the solid banks of 
cloud rolled and piled and struggled below. Some 
were gray, some were silver-white, some were yellow, 
and some were pale pink. No sunset ever was so beau- 
tiful. For an hour they went up and down and back 
and forth along the whole mountain wall, to east and 
south and north, as far as I could see. Gradually the 
colors died out, and the clouds grew fleecier and fleecier, 
till only little floating films Avere left here and there, and 
the whole valley was full of sunlight. I feel as if I had 
seen a world made. Tliis afternoon I have been in the 
Platz, buying some more pictures to send to you, and 
some curious bone boxes made by the peasantry here. 
I hope those of you to whom I bring one will not scorn 
it for being scooped out of a cow's horn, and tattooed 
with ink in queer figures and mottoes. " Gastein " is 
written on all of them, and that makes them sacred to 
12 



2 66 ENCYCLICALS OF A mAVELLER. 

me, but I am afraid you will not have the same romance 
about it. On the way down I had an interview with 
the man who is to take me to Salzburg. He is the man 
who drives a carriage for Dr. ProU ; perfectly trust- 
worthy and good, and has an uncommonly keen and 
honest face; but really he looked to me so like my worst 
enemy I could hardly speak peaceably to him. 

0, here is the time for me to tell you about an 
einspanner, for that is the thing I am going in, — 
only I am going in an uncommonly fine one, which, can 
be shut up in case of rain, and is painted in bright 
green, in imitation of straw-work, on the sides. But, 
after all, the greatest thing about a einspanner is not the 
einspanner at all, but the way the horse is put in. The 
carriage is like one of our common buggies, only very 
low, and instead of a dasher in front is a tiny low seat 
with no back, no front, no anything to it, and on this 
the driver sits, with his feet dangling over among the 
legs of the horse, or tucked up on the pole. I was just 
going to say whiffletree, which Avould have been a 
great joke, seeing that there is n't anything approach- 
ing to one about the whole concern. Now for the 
horse. Out of the centre of your einspanner comes a 
pole, just as if it were intended for two horses. On the 
left side of this pole is your horse, fastened by traces 
which are leather only half-way, and the rest of the 
way small rope twisted and tied, — and frayed, as like 
as not No breeching, — nothing under heaven to 
prevent your horse from stepping out of the traces on 
the off ^side, nothing for him to hold back by, going 
down hill,— so on the gentlest slopes they lock two of 
the wheels and put on a brake, and you grind down 
safely in spite of the cord traces flapping round the 
horse's heels. The first time I rode in one I was posi- 
tively afraid, which was a new sensation for me on 
wheels ; but now I am hardened to them, and feel as 
comfortable as if I were in the most approved of high- 
top buggies on the Bloomingdale road. Fancy me 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 267 

dashing along for a day and a half all alone in one of 
them. Really, the things one does in Europe would 
seem extraordinary at home. If I started to take a 
journey of seventy miles in an open wagon, it would 
sound preposterous there, but here I think nothing of 
it. I am even thinking of going a little longer way to 
see some new places. I shall put my letter away now, 
and add just a few pages after I reach Munich. I think 
you will like it better if it is not all Gastein^ so I shall 
not send it off, as I had intended, before starting. I 
cannot expect you all to be Gastein-mad, as I am, and 
I dare say I shall not be so myself after a few days in a 
picture-gallery again. 

Saturday Eve. — Did I not say that I had need to 
be careful about saying that I would do anything so 
against nature as to leave G-astein ? Behold me re- 
turned again to sleep in my attic, after having been as 
far as Hof-Gastein on my way to Salzburg ! 0, how 
I am laughing, and how queer it all is, and how glad I 
am of one more sunrise on these mountains ! But this 
is the way it came about. Till the last minute I had 
put oflP starting. At three o'clock this afternoon it was 
to be. At three o'clock the carriage was here, — a nice 
little einspanner, which can be shut up tight like a cab. 
Marie cried hard, and I cried a httle. At the last min- 
ute she appears with a big basket of raw tomatoes and 
peaches, and a bottle of strong beef-tea, which I taught 
her to make when I had my sore-throat, and which she 
considers, I believe, to be a standard American beverage. 
These are for the journey. A great round bouquet, 
gorgeous with verbenas, china-asters, pansies, phlox, 
yellow buttercups, and asparagus, and white openwork 
tissue paper, comes behind in Irma's little grimy fingers ; 
another little bunch of roses, fuchsias, and forget-me- 
nots from Marie's own treasures : the big one is from 
the flower-store, and I very much fear that Marie gave 
a whole gulden for it. The doctor goes before, having 
promised to drive as far as Hof-Gastein with me. What 



208 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 

is my surprise to see him suddenly fly into the most 
tremendous rage, and begin to talk loud and gesticulate 
furiously to some invisible person behind the fir-trees ! 
I run on to see what has happened, for a voluble Grer- 
man in a rage is a sight to make you quicken your steps 
any day ; sure enough, there, instead of the good, faith- 
ful, steady-going owner of the einspanner, who had 
promised to take me, was his boy, sixteen years old, 
who is the most dehciously careless little grinning ras- 
cal I ever drove behind. The other day, in the space 
of three hours, he twice ran into a fence, one time com- 
ing very near kilHng his horse, and the other time still 
nearer smashing the wagon ; but he only laughed, and 
jumped down and tugged away at the back wheels till 
he got us into the road again. This was a charming 
escort on a seventy-mile journey. However, I said, 
''Allah il Allah — I go! " So off we started. The 
carriage was partly shut up, for already a drizzling rain 
was setting in. Just before we reached Hof-Gastein it 
grew colder, and the rain began to drive in at each side. 
Where were the window pieces? 0, he had not 
brought them ! Then you should have seen the holy 
fury of Dr. Proll! I am rather glad to have discov- 
ered that he can grow red in the face, and abuse peo- 
ple, like other mortals, because he always seemed a 
little too much like a saint before. There I was; noth- 
ing to do but to come back, for to go on in an Alpine 
storm with the carriage open would be madness ; and 
the most provoking thing was, that it had only been 
to save a few pounds' additional weight for his horse, 
that the man had left the side pieces at home. 0, how 
disconsolate and black the boy looked when he was 
ordered to turn round and come back to G-astein ! 
Every few minutes the exasperated doctor would break 
out w^th some hotter and heavier sentence, which 
sounded like something more fearful than the preceding 
one. Really, angry German is the most horrible sound 
I ever heard in mv life. Incantation, maledictions, su- 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 269 

pernatural thunderings, and sputterings are in it. When 
I arrived at the house, Marie, Irma, Rupert, all came run- 
ning with astonishment so great that their faces looked 
all eyes. Irma takes out the bouquets and disappears 
with them ; Marie claps her hands, and says " G-ood, 
good, it is good, — that now I will not go at all " ; Hu- 
bert lugs up my hat-box ; the boy with the green ein- 
spanner drives off more crestfallen than I thought he 
could look; and here am I at my old writing-table, 
with a fire in my stove, and candles lit at six o'clock 
of a September evening. I believe there must be 
some special providence in the thing, for the storm has 
increased so fearfully it is almost a gale of rain. I 
should have been drenched even in a closed carriage 
before seven o'clock. Now what is to be done next I 
do not know. I fear the doctor and the einspanner man 
are now so angry that I have no chance in that green 
chariot again. I await the news with which the doctor 
will return to-night from the Platz. In the mean time 
you have two more pages of Grastein, after all. I 
should n't wonder if to-morrow there were to arrive a 
letter or a telegram from somebody, I can't imagine 
who or what, but somebody or something which should 
keep me here another month. It would be no odder 
than my having stayed here this month and having come 

back to-night Here comes the doctor, his face all 

aglow with delight. '' Such a miracle! " he says ; " do I 
not tell you all is miracle ? A storm is raging out at 
the end of the valley such as has not been seen for 
weeks and weeks." I should have driven directly into 
it and have been at six o'clock in the Klamme, the nar- 
row pass of which I wrote you ; no, I did not either. 
Well, it is the wildest sort of a pass ; just room for the 
road and a river, and tremendous precipices above, on 
one hand, and below, on the other. In many places 
the road is on a plank shelf, held on, I don't know how, 
to the side of the rocky cliffs. It makes me shudder 
to think of having been overtaken there by this storm, 



2 70 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 

with the grinning boy for driver. But more good luck 
yet. A carriage is here from Salzburg, anxious to get 
a passenger to return, a good carriage and two horses, 
for which I pay but one gulden more than for the ein- 
spanner, and the driver is a trusty old man who has 
been on the road for twenty years, and is well known 
to everybody. At half past six to-morrow morning I 
start once more, and this time I think it will really be 
a success. 

Munich, Wednesday ^ 15th. — Yes, it was a success, if 
anything can be called so which takes one away from 
the Gastein valley. Two such days as I had, all alone in 
my big carriage, with the fatherly old driver, who will 
puzzle his head to his dying day, I believe, to make out 
why it was that I went by myself, and what under 
heaven made me look so delighted all the way. It was 
such sunshine and such beauty, I even forgot that each 
mile took me farther from G-astein. Zell-am-See, Saal- 
felden, Reichenhall, Salzburg ; but I was two days doing 
it, and I said everything that was needful at the odd 
little Grerman inns; and I climbed down into the Seis- 
senberger Klamme, which is the one spot on earth where 
chaos reigns ; and my flowers never wilted by a shade 
during the whole two days, the wonderful G-astein 
blossoms ! And when I walked into the grand Hotel 
Europa at Salzburg, I felt like one in a dream, — wait- 
ers with white cravats again, mushroom-sauce, and 
clothes to be seen on all sides ! Heigh-ho ! I slipped 
my shoulder under the strap once more, and picked up 
the burden of belonging to the world's people. Gas- 
tein, Gastein, farewell! Then came telegraphings be- 
tween Salzburg and Innspruck, and, of course, misun- 
derstandings ; and did n't I come on here to Munich 
stark staring alone, instead of having met my friends at 
Rosenheim, as I should have done if I had properly 
understood the arrangement ! At the station here, a 
providential man who spoke English ! Always I find 
one when I am in straits, and this time the straits were 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 271 

dreadful. I shudder to think what I should have done 
without that man. In the country I don't mind ; with my 
dictionary I get on ; but at a railroad station in a city ! 
I should have turned and run away, I think, and never 
been heard of more. Two hours later, by the next train, 

arrived poor P and N , equally bewildered and 

unhappy at not finding me. Now we are settled, and 
have seen the Prince of Prussia. We came out of the 
hotel ahead of him too. Four black horses, riders in 
blue and silver on the two near horses, riders in blue 
and silver high up behind coach in blue and silver, 
rider in blue and silver on another black horse gallop- 
ing before ! The prince wore a stove-pipe hat, and 
looked, as every man looks who wears a stove-pipe 
hat, like any other man's barber ; but the horses and 
the blue and silver were gay to see. 

Munich looks to me, after three hours' driving in it, 
about as interesting as a brick-kiln, and more like it than 
anything else. Bricks unbaked and all stamped same 
pattern. But all that this century can do in the way 
of pictures is to be seen here now, so I mean to look. 
Carpaccio's St. Ursula is worth more than the whole 
of it, I suspect. 

Good by, and good by, and good by. 



2-72 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 



Munich, Monday, October 4, 1869. 

DEAE PEOPLE : Behold me, once more alone, 
left to myself for four days in this Grerman city. 
The girls have just started on their journey south- 
ward, — Innspruck, Botzen, Yerona, Florence, Rome. 
It sounds better than my programme, does it not? 
mine being Nuremberg, Cologne, Rotterdam, London. 
But, ah, how joyful I am, to be, at last, moving to the 
North ! I had planned to set out at the same time they 
did, i. e. nine o'clock this morning ; but at the last mo- 
ment the dear Fiaulein Hahlreiner, in whose house 
we lodged for two weeks, said if I would wait until 
Friday she would go with me. This I was but too 
glad to do, for of the only two women I could fmd who 
spoke English and were willing to take the journey, 
I could not tell which I disliked the more. One wished 
to go as my bosom-friend, and the other was a simple- 
ton. But the Fraulein! You '11 have enough of her, 
though, before you are done, for my letter will be full 
of her. 

I cannot tell you very much about Munich, I think. 
See New York Independent for my opinions as to the 
outside look of it, and did I not tell you in the last 
letter also ? I forget. But all I shall brmg away from 
Munich will be pictures. Think of my having seen, in 
this short time, nearly four thousand! Of course I do 
not remember distinctly one hundred ot them, but I 
have learned the different touch of the different paint- 
ers, and know whom I love. 

More and more I wonder what art would have done 
if Christ and his mother Mary had not lived on the 
earth. More than one gospel we owe them. Nobody 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRA VELLER, 



273 



will ever paint anything so sweet as Bellini's and Yan 
Dyck's Madonnas, or so pure and strong as Fra Angelico 
believed the old saints to be. The only Christs I have 
seen at which I can look are Yan Dyck's. One was a 
head in an old palace at G-enoa. I wrote you about it. 
It had a look of John Weiss made martyr. The other 
is a crucifixion here in the Pinakothek. Yan Dyck 
dares to make his Christ dark and strong and stern 
with suffering. Everybody else paints him a gentle, 
inefficient-looking creature, with long hair parted in the 
middle. It is something I cannot understand. The 
type began in the old seventh-century frescos, and 
from that day to this, so far as I can see, Yan Dyck is 
the only man who has departed from it. 

Now, for these four days, I shall do only two things, 
— write, and go to the Pinakothek. I have done the 
Exposition (and you can all read it in the Independent), 
and now I am going to spend three whole forenoons 
with Albert Diirer, Yan Dyck, Rembrandt, G-erard 
Dow, Murillo, Teniers, Yan der Werff, Cuyp, Paul 
Potter, Titian, Yeronese, and Raphael, Holbein, Meister 
Wilham of Cologne, and half a dozen more whose 
names I won't write. Don't think I look at every- 
body's pictures out of the four thousand, or at first one 
and then another man's, as most people do. I look at 
such people (and they are everybody) with perfect 
astonishment. I can't do it, any more than I could 
read fifty books at a time, a few lines from one and 
then from another, and so on. That would be pre- 
cisely the same thing. I look at Murillo, for instance, 
for a day, and at nobody else. There are six lovely 
pictures of his in the Pinakothek. Such dehcious 
beggars, and such a good time as they have ! There 
is one boy with a great mouthful of melon in one 
cheek that I shall never forget; and another with his 
head thrown back, eating grapes. I had seen the 
engravings before ; but they are nothmg, the coloring 
is all. 

12* R 



J74 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 



But I write to you too much about pictures. I re- 
member I used to think it the most stupid reading in 
the world, other people's notions of pictures which I 
had not seen. 

Tfiursday Morning^ October 14, 1869. — On the Rhine, 
four hours above Rotterdam ; rolled up in blankets to 
keep warm. 

Ah, but it 's a great thing to have come down the 
Rhine! 0, how shall I ever tell you the worry and 
the strain of it ! With any less of a genius than my 
Fraulein I should never have got through. I shudder 
when I think of the time I should have had with the 
simpleton or the bosom companion. But I will begin 
back. Last Friday morning we left Munich for Nurem- 
berg. I had read in Murray that the Wiirtemberger 
Hof was " good, clean, and moderate/' so I telegraphed 
from the station at Munich to the Wurtemberger Hof 
for two rooms. Arrived in Nuremberg at 9 p. m., 
confidently we said to men in crowd, ''We go to the 
Wurtemberger Hof." Crowd lifted up its voice, and 
said there was no Wurtemberger Hof I, being by 
nature obstinate, and having Murray in my hand, said 
there was. Poor Fraulein, in despair, dumped me in 
the waiting-room and went off to see. She came back 
with, "My dear lady, she do not exist these now four 
years, the Hotel Wurtemberger." So we followed a 
small boy, with a glass of beer in his hand, down the 
square to the Nuremberger Hof, to which we found 
our telegram had been sent, and which is the very 
worst hotel I have seen in Europe. Next day it was 
a pouring rain. Nevertheless, I saw Nuremberg. A 
carriage, which might have been at Albert Diirer's 
funeral, I think, and two skeleton horses, and the Frau- 
lein and I lumbering in and out under umbrellas, the 
Nuremberghers saw in their streets for fi.ve hours that 
day. 

Old frescos by Durer, old dungeons worse than any 
in Venice, most wonderful old churches, (I send you 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 273 

pictures of all,) such instruments of torture as I have 
read of, but never fairly believed in, Albert Diirer's 
grave and statue, Hans Sach's grave, the castle, 
street after street of odd old houses, with windows to 
make your mouth water, fountains by Peter Yischer, 
shops of such worsted miracles and silver carvings 
and amber necklaces, — 0, 1 am wretched now to think 
that I could not spend $ 100 in five minutes in those 
shops ! 

Never any of you try to see Nuremberg in a day. 
It is a place to ramble in for a week, to study corners 
and doorsteps and odd shadowy places, and in St. 
Lawrence's and St. Sebald's churches to spend morn- 
ings and evenings. I must go back some day with 
some of you. Who speaks ? That Iron Virgin I must 
tell you about. It is gray stone, and the picture is ex- 
actly like it. It is in the last chamber of a series of 
dungeons under the wall of the city. Those two doors 
swing open. Inside they are set with horrible iron 
spikes in the head and the chest. When the person 
was placed inside, the doors were pressed slowly to- 
gether by a great iron bar which comes from the wall 
opposite. It could not take many seconds to kill one 
so; that was the only consolation to think of ; it was 
not really so cruel as some of the simpler-looking 
methods. Under the feet is a trap-door through which 
the body fell, eight feet down into the canal, and so out 
into the river. I looked down ; but poor Fraulein said, 
'VMein Grott, mein G-ott!" and turned so pale that I 
was afraid the great hearty creature would faint away, 
and how should we ever have got her out of those 
winding stone caverns ! Everywhere she said such 
striking things that I was lost in astonishment at her. 
But I can't tell them to you here, because if I do you 
will none of you care anything about my story which 
I am. going to make of her as soon as I get to London. 
Blessed old darling ! I only wish I could take her for 
the rest of my hfe, wherever I go. 



2^6 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 



From Nuremberg to Mayence, nothing worth telling. 
From Mayence to Cologne, first day on the Rhine I 
Ha, my people, do you think I am going to send you a 
letter full of ecstasies about the Rhine ? Not I. When 
the boat first pushed off from Mayence I said to myself 
— No ! I won't tell you what I said ; but for several 
hours I was the most damped creature you ever saw. 
The Fraulein had never before seen it, never before 
been in a large boat. " 0, my lady, find you not this 
boat very large ? " And when I told her that I was 
only astonished to find it so small, she was dumb with 
incredulous surprise. There were three American wo- 
men on the deck, who were '' doing " the Rhine so zeal- 
ously, reading aloud from Murray at every ruin and 
castle, that somehow I took a sudden perverse disgust 
to the whole thing, and for the first time in my whole 
year I played the hlase traveller. The truth is, that 
one should never see the Coliseum and the tomb of 
Cecilia Metella before seeing the ruins on the Rhine ; 
after them, nothing else this side of Palestine can look 
like more than a middle-aged house " out of repair." 
And, above all, one should not come from Tyrol down 
the Rhine ; remember that, all of you who mean Rhine 
and Tyrol some day. G-o to the Tyrol, u]^ the Rhine, 
and then perhaps you will get a Rhine ! I honestly 
own I have not had any. It won't " take. " Well, 

we went on shore at Cologne (0, I must not 

forget to tell you that they have built up a nice new 
old arch where Roland's real old, old arch fell down last 
year. It looks quite well against the sky, after you 
get far enough off, and the island below is really just 
as lovely as the ninety-nine thousand tourists have 
said.) 

At Cologne we were splendidly lodged at the Hotel 
du Nord, in which I bad to sleep with my head to the 
south ; bright and early we set out to find the man 
who sold tickets " through" to London. If there is any 
creature in the world that rouses my ire, it is the porter 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 277 

in a first-class European city hotel. Their assistance is 
odious to me even in my greatest extremity, and their 
politeness so flavored v^ith impudence that I boil. I 
have n't yet fathomed the mystery. I do not under- 
stand the species. Such a one I met in the doorv^ay. 
Would he give me the address of the agent for the 
steamboat line for Eotterdam and London ? 

'• Madame wished to go to London ? " v^ith a bow 
and a smile. 

" Can you give me the address ? " 

^' The agent will be here at eleven o'clock ; he comes 
every day to make all the arrangements for passengers 
for our house." 

'' I do not wish to wait, I wish to see him at once ; 
will you give me the address ? " 

" I can give you all the information, madam e, my- 
self, and save you the trouble of going to the ofiice." 

'' Will you, or will you not, give me the address ? " said 
I, — tliunderedl^ would be more true, for 0, how mad 
I was ! Then I got it, and the porter went back into 
his ofl&ce, muttering to himself, I suppose, that Ameri- 
canerins were all bears. 

Poor Fraulein stood by, silent and aghast. '^ Find 
you that man respectful, my lady ? " she said, after we 
were in the street. 

^' no," said I, " quite impertinent." 

" I thought so," she said. ''0, but I hate these peo- 
ple in this north country ! " 

Well, we drove to No. 12 Frederick Wilham Strasse ; 
grand office ; '' London, Calais, and Dover K. R." over 
the door. '' dear ! " thinks I. " However, I '11 ask." 
Grand cockney in white vest. '^ I wish to make some 
inquiries about the route to London via Eotterdam, and 
I was sent here , is this the place ? " 

" You wish to go to London ? " 

'^ Well,' said I to myself, " Yankees are not alone in 
asking needless questions." However, I thought best 
to conciliate this bull, and I said I did, for reasons best 



278 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 

known to myself, wish to do that very thing. " But I 
certainly would not go via Rotterdam." Their line, via 
Ostend, was so much shorter, quicker, etc., — a ten 
minutes' harangue from a prospectus. At last I got out 
of him the address of the office of the Netherlands 
Steamship Company, and down to the wharves we 
drove. A little box of a building, and a mild, surprised 
young man, and " yes, they did sell through tick- 
ets to London, but no direct line through except on 
Sunday morning. Yes, I could wait at Rotterdam, or 
take a run up to Sweden and Norway, or somewhere, 
and in eight days I could be in London." I was in 
despair; at last I said, ''But there is surely another 
company ? " '' yes ; the Cologne and Dusseldorf " 
*' Ah, where was that ? " He told me, bowed blandly, 
and resumed his writing as if such little conversations 
were frequent at his desk. 

More wharves, another little box building, another 
clerk selling tickets to people that looked hke emigrants. 
This seemed more promising. Could I get a through 
ticket to London? '' yes; but I would have to wait 
in Rotterdam over one day." Just what I wished. 
Then I was passed over to another man, an old man 
with big benevolence in the forehead, and he explained 
to me that I could go at 3 p. m. that day to Dussel- 
dorf, at 8 A. M. next day to Arnheim, and there, wheth- 
er there would or could not be a boat he could not say, 
but, at any rate, I could take cars to Rotterdam from 
there, and the whole ticket was so cheap I did not mind 
that at all, and I felt all the safer because he did not 
guarantee where he was not sure. He believed there 
would be a boat at Arnheim. Could he check my big 
trunk for London ? Yes. So I bought my ticket ; only 
40 francs for me to London, and Fraulein to Arnheim ! 
Remember that, you who mean to come, you can get 
from London to Cologne for $ 7 less this way. 

Then I set out to see Cologne, took a look at the 
church where St. Ursula's Virgins' bones are laid, (this 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRA VELLER, 



279 



I did for love of dear old Carpaccio's pictures in Venice. 
You remember?) then St. G-ereon, which is a grand 
old church ; here were skulls of martyrs set over door- 
ways, behind railings, skuhs set back side to the front, 
or else the eyes and nose and mouth were all wrapped 
in red velvet or damask, I could not make out which it 
was : then the house where Rubens lived and Marie 
de Medicis died ; and then the G-urzenich, which is a 
handsome stone building, and has two nice old fellows 
in stone set under pent-house roofs in the front. And 
then the Apostles' Church, and the house near by, where 
are two stone heads of horses looking out of the third- 
story window, to commemorate the coming to life of 
Mrs. Somebody who was buried in that church, and, 
not being dead, returned quickly to her home and 
walked in on Mr. Somebody before he had decided 
what to do about it, and says he, " You are not my wife 
any more than my horses can be up in the third-story 
room " ; and pop ! out come the horses' heads, at that 
very minute, out of the third-story window ; and the 
stone heads aie there still to prove the story, which of 
course they do. 

Then a dinner at a cafe ; poor Fraulein turning white 
with horror at the prices and the quality. 

" my lady, find you this chicken good ? She are 
old, old chicken ; never had I courage to give old chicken 
in my house. Now I give. 0, 1 win much money from 
this journey ! '* 

After dinner, the cathedral, two hours free for it. 
Those of you who have seen it will not wonder that I 
have nothing to say about it; those of you who have not 
must forgive me. I cannot say one word. It is more 
wonderful than any words. If I said that by miracle 
a stone mountain had flowered in spire and arch and 
statue till there was not room for one single flower 
more to be set, that is my nearest word to what I saw, 
and so near that I think that somebody else must have 
said it before me. 



28o ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 

At half past two behold Fraulein and me down on 
wharf again, (0, I forgot to say that there are now 
17,000 different smells in Cologne, besides the Farina!) 
and at the little box-office door. Women and babies 
and bundles round the doorstep. I felt like Castle Gar- 
den. No old man of the morning, no clerk, no boat. 
One mortal hour passed ; old man arrived ; in half an 
hour more the boat. Things and people and we driz- 
zled in as if all day were before us. I took a last, long, 
lingering look at my trunk, and tried to beheve I should 
ever see it again. It must go by another boat to be 
sure of getting past Arnheim. Now I am sorry I did 
not bring it with me, but I was over-persuaded by the 
old man with benevolence big. 

On deck I see an unmistakable English bonnet. The 
bonnet sprang up and said, '' Oh I oh I do you know 
when this boat will start ? " 

'* Immediately, I think.'* 

*' But there has been an accident to it." 

'^ Oh I oh ! " said I, and my heart sank. 

*' Yes ; and each man says a different thing, and we 
have had no dinner, and I have just left a most beloved 
daughter at school at Neuwied, and I have cried the 
whole night, and I look like a fright," said she, lifting 
up her frightful black lace veil spotted with white, and 
showing a very pleasant, clean face. 

" 0, bless you ! " thought I, '' you are a godsend 
anyhow, if you are going to talk in this way." 

Then came along the husband, a good-looking, brown- 
eyed, brown-whiskered man, who talked through his 
nose quite as much as any American I ever saw, and 
we fell to immediately and wondered what would turn 
up, and if we should ever get to Dusseldorf In comes 
old man with big benevolence, and says, " We can tell 
in half an hour whether we can go on to-night or not ! " 
Half-hour was one hour. 0, how much that woman 
told me in that time ! 

Then we started for Dusseldorf I, being half dead 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 287 

with a cold which I had taken sleeping in the damp 
layers of sodden flax which they call sheets in Cologne, 
had to curl myself up in a corner of the cabin and mak^ 
the best of solitude and darkness. Every few minutes 
came down the Fraulein to tell me what the English 
lady had said, and to see how I got on. At 9 p. m. 
Dusseldorf! English advocate said Hotel Europe was 
the one they had selected to go to. Out we filed ; two 
men ahead carrying English advocate's valise and my 
hat-box ; English advocate's wife and I hugging on to 
each other like old friends ; Fraulein and English advo- 
cate roaming about loose on the outer edges of the pro- 
cession ; dark as midnight. Nobody seemed to know 
exactly what we were to do ; each thought somebody 
else was taking responsibility. 

" Halt ! " Plump down go valises and hat-box in 
middle of street ; custom-house officer with lantern ! 

'* Have you meat or sausage ? " said he, twinkling his 
eyes with fun to see how little we looked like sausage- 
smugglers, and how scared we were at the idea of hav- 
ing trunks opened in the dead of night in the streets 
of Dusseldorf. 

Then he let us go on, having taken our word for all, 
and not opened a single bag or box. " Fraulein ! " 
said I, ^^ did you tell that man you had no sausages in 
your basket ? " I knowing that she had at least six. 

" no, my lady, I did not make lie, I make diplo- 
matique. He say, ' Have you meat or sausage ? ' and I 
say, ' No, I have no meat ! ' " 

Then we brought up at the Cologne Hof. Quite 
cheery looked the hall, well lit up. Down went valise 
and hat-box, and we stepped in, glad of a roof. " All 
full ! all full ! " cried the landlord, running out from 
the dining-room, " not a single room ! " 

Then rose a great babble of the porters and waiters, 
and each said the name of a different house to which 
we would better go. English advocate, who could n't 
speak a word of German, — by the way, I don't know 



282 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 

how he had been getting on, — said we would go to 
the nearest, good or bad. Up and down, in and out, 
round and about, we went, full half a mile, and reached 
the Breidenbacher Hof, got in, and got rooms and got 
to bed. 

^' Call us at six ; we go on board the boat for Arn- 
heim at eight," said 1. 

" There is no boat in the morning," said the porter. 

'•'■ There must be," said I, remembering the forehead 
of the old man in Cologne. 

Porter was obstinate, knew there was no boat; the 
boat for Arnheim went at 11 p. m. every night. Then 
I ordered a commissioner to go to the office and see. 
In an hour he came back with the same story ; still I 
did not believe, but I went to bed quite unhappy at 
the prospect of a long car ride the next day, and the 
thought of having been swindled by the big benevo- 
lence. At six and a half next morning I rang for 
water. Waiter says, with the air of one having an 
unimportant second thought, " 0, there is a boat 
down this morning at half past eight, the porter says." 
Thinking the impressions of the employees of the 
Breidenbacher Hof quite too vacillating to be de- 
pended on, I pack poor Fraulein off in the cold twi- 
light, down to the wharf, to ask. She comes back, 
pops her head in at my door, " Yes, my lady, he go," 
and is off again on some other mysterious errand of 
her own. 

At breakfast comes the bill, presented by a pale, mel- 
ancholy young man who spoke excellent English, (and 
whom I suspect of being a student at Dusseldorf,) 
with item of ten silver groschen for the services of com- 
missioner. Would n't you have liked to have heard 
the English with which I declined paying for the 
services of the commissioner who had informed me 
that there was no hoat that morning ? Pale young 
man smiled a sickly smile, but struck off the item. I 
left a word of farewell and thanks to the voluble Mrs, 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 283 

Advocate, and gave her my London address, and once 
more poor Fraulein (v^ho began to look a little fagged 
by her nev^ v^orries) and I took up our line of march. 
This boat proved not to be a boat for Arnheim at all, 
but direct for Eotterdam by vv^ay of Nimwegen. Much 
I fear that Big Benevolence did not knov7 it v^ould be 
at Dusseldorf on Wednesday morning. Ho v^ ever, the 
tickets vrere as good on it as on any other, and v^e 
need not go off it at all, and v^e shall be in Eotterdam 
at half past one. So all is well that ends v^^ell. If I 
had my big trunk I should be content. But if you 
could once imagine hov^ cold it is. A drizzling rain 
and a cold v^ind and no fire. Last night the Fraulein 
and I slept on mattresses in the captain's cabin. We^ 
being the only v^omen on board, had it to ourselves. 
I v^^ore all my clothes v^hich are not Mack^ my woollen 
wrapper, a heavy cloth sack trimmed with astrachan, 
and I had three blankets above me. Now I have a 
jug of hot water at my feet, and two blankets rolled 
around me to the knees, and am just comfortable, ex- 
cept my hands, which are icy cold in spite of all I can 
do. I see Holland going by in oval strips through the 
three cabin windows opposite me. It is chiefly wind- 
mills, and the ships look like Chinese junks. Every 
few minutes we pass small steamers towing five and 
six of them up stream. The outer cabin had six 
Dutchmen in it, all smoking hke furnaces. So I have 
coaxed the conductor to let me stay in his cabin, and 
he is writing away at his round table on invoices, etc. 
Last night I had the washbowl, pitcher, etc., on the 
same table, and this morning he had to come in to get 
at his books before I had finished washing my hands. 
He only knows two English words, " all right," and 
he says them whenever he comes in or goes out, and 
pulls off his shiny black silk cap and bows to me. He 
cannot imagine what I am writing. The Fraulein told 
him her lady would recommend his boat everywhere, 
and so I do. All of you remember that if you want 



284 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 



to get from Rotterdam up the Rhine, you will do best 
to take the Netherlands Hue, not the Cologne and Dus- 
seldorf. Such good things to eat as we have had for 
this day and a half, such clean sheets and blankets to 
sleep in, and such kind and pleasant service, I have not 
seen since we left Munich. Last night the waiter 
brought in a light for us to burn all night, lest we 
might be afraid. Such a contrivance as it was ! A 
tumbler half full of oil, floating on it a thing made of 
three round bits of cork, and in the middle what looked 
like a thin white wafer with a bit of candle-wick in it; 
and burn, burn, burn, it burned all night, with a queer 
little glimmer which only showed how dark the cabin 
was. Whenever I half waked up and saw it I said, 
'' Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you 
are ! " and dozed off again, thinking of Alice in Wonder 
Land. By the way, did I tell you — you who know that 
dehcious book — that "Lewis Carroll" is a woman, quite 
young, who never wrote anything else but " Alice " ? 

Rotterdam, Friday Morning. — I suppose there must 
be some reason why it is best that I should not see the 
Hague, as I had intended to do to-day ; but I must 
own I was in a rebelhous frame of mind to find, when 
I waked up this morning, sohd sheets of rain pouring 
down. As if there were not water enough in Rotter- 
dam ! ^ So there is nothing to do but wait quietly for 
my ship for London to-morrow morning. Poor Frau- 
lein is the picture of woe. She has read all her maga- 
zines, and now has fallen back on an old almanac which 
she borrowed of the waiter. To sit still is as great a 
misery for her as if she were five years old instead 
of fifty-two, and she is so near-sighted that she 
cannot amuse herself by looking out of the windows as 
I do. 

These Dutch women are the drollest figures I have 
seen yet. They are running back and forth in this rain 
with white fluted caps on their heads, and white wooden 
shoes turned up at the toes like Chinese junks, — just 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRA VELLER. 



285 



such as the poorest peasants wear in the Tyrol in wet 
weather. And such scrubbing as goes on in the morn- 
ing here, never did I see ! Opposite my windows — in 
ah the rain — a woman with pails and pails and pails of 
water, and a broom, and a mop, and cloths, scrubbing 
the sidewalks and the doorstep for two whole hours ! 
0, if I were an artist, would I not have made a picture, 
"A Wet Morning in Rotterdam," — the shop door and 
the windows, and this woman flooding the sidewalk 
with water, and scouring away with her mop, and 
all the time the rain pouring down on her fluted cap 
and into her wooden shoes ! 

Now I go out in a close carriage to see Rotterdam. 
It is too bad ! so much I should have enjoyed running 
up to the Hague this morning, and loafing in these 
streets this afternoon ! I must be forgiven for this one 
little grumble. Poor Fraulein is fast asleep on the sofa. 
She looks much older when she is asleep, I see. When 
she is awake, and her eyes and her dimples at work, 
nobody would think her over forty. When she. came 
in yesterday, she said, ^' my lady, what think you a 
man said on me ? When I go on the post-ofl&ce for 
your letter, five men they sit by table to play cards, 
and each man he have — 50, in his mouth, (making one 
very big cheek with her tongue, to indicate a tobacco 
plug !) and one man he say, ' Dunderwetter, but that 
wife is fat! ' and I make my eyes not to right, not to 
left, as if I nothing hear, but I feel my get very red in 
the face ! " 

Never have I seen any human being with such talent 
for mimicry as this Fraulein. On the stage she would 
have made her fortune. I have laughed more in these 
seven days' journeying with her than in the whole last 
year put together. There is no human thing she cannot 
hecome in one second. The changes in her face, when 
she is telling a story, sometimes almost frighten me. 
Last night she told me about an interview with a priest; 
and the sanctimonious priestly face that she lengthened 



286 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 

out into in one second, and the drawl and whine, were 
such as I never have seen outdone on any stage. 

Farewell, now, my dear souls, till I get to London. 

Evening. — But I must tell you a httle about my day. 
The first thing to be done was to get some money. 
Mons. Ezekiels was the prophetic name on my letter 
of credit. Were the banking-houses open all day ? 

*' yes ; all day." 

the things that people don't know about their own 
city ! I wonder a dozen times a month if I should lie 
so, in giving a stranger information about New York. 
I suppose I should. 

Well, to Ezekiels we went. To get anywhere in 
Eotterdam you drive a long way up one side of a canal, 
till you come to a bridge that has n't a ship going 
through, and then, after you have crossed that bridge, 
you drive a long way down the other side of the canal, 
and tlirough a narrow lane out on the banks of another 
canal, and cross that, and then you cross the first canal 
once or twice more, and drive up and down on the 
shores of the second, and then you get there ! This is 
the way it looks. I suppose the canals and lanes really 
are far apart from each other, and called by different 
names, but they all feel alike, and you can see your 
face in every bit of window-glass or door-bell along 
the way. There is n't any place left for godliness next 
to cleanliness in Rotterdam, I am sure ; cleanliness has 
taken all the room ! 

A long, low, stone-paved, stone-arched passage-way 
led to Ezekiels's counting-room at the back of his house ; 
his cellar and kitchen were on the same floor ; a woman 
in wooden shoes was scrubbing his floor; and such 
shining pans and kettles filled his kitchen, they al- 
most lit the stone gallery. No Ezekiels! Loquitur^ 
young man with a yard of Jew nose, '^ All banking- 
houses in Rotterdam shut from twelve till three ! " 

So I drove off. Saw old Admiral de Witt in stone 
in the St. Lawrence Churchy and the funny high seats 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 2Sy 

with tent-roofs over them, where the burgomasters sit 
of a Sunday ; bought some photographs ; saw statue 
of Erasmus; and back again to the Jew's. Five Jew 
noses all turned and pointed at me as I went in. "I 
will take gold,'' I said. " 0, we have no gold ; we will 
give you good Dutch currency." ** But I am gomg to 
England. I do not want Dutch currency." All five of the 
Jew noses sniffed at the idea of a benighted individual's 
preferring gold to Dutch currency, and the young man 
said, " You can get it changed for gold on the Boom- 
pjes." (Wish you all joy pronouncing that word.) So 
I patiently took my bundle of flabby Dutch currency, 
and bowed to all fiYQ of the Jew noses, and drove off, 
up and down half a dozen more alternating strips of 
canal and street, and found another Jew who gave me 
gold for my paper. This is the first banking-house in 
which I have had to do such a clumsy and absurd 
thing. 

Now all is packed and strapped and ready for the 
morrow. I have a big ache at leaving my great Frau- 
lein. I shall feel like a swallow pushed out of the nest 
to fly alone. 

On hoard steamer^ nine o^clock^ a. m., Saturday^ 
October 11. — Lest I forget some of the scenes of the 
last half-hour, I have taken out my pen and inkstand 
and paper (to the stewardess's great surprise), and 
while the boat only rocks a little, I shall try to tell you 
what sort of a time we have had. Dear Fraulein's 
train for Cologne was to start at eight o'clock this 
morning, the boat for London not till nine. 

'^ my dear lady, could you not go on board at 
half past seven, that I see you all comfortable before I 
go?" So, to please her, I ordered breakfast at half past 
six, and down to the boat we came at seven. A more 
surprised stewardess was never seen, nor a darker, 
colder den than the ladies' cabin. However, I saw the 
wisdom of the Fraulein's plan in the increased respect 
of the stewardess's manner. She stood by with wide 



288 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 

eyes to see the great splendid Fraulein crying and kiss- 
ing my hands. Really I have not had such a parting 
for years. I did not know the good soul had so taken 
me to heart. 

After she went off the boat, the stewardess was over- 
whelmingly polite, much more than she would have 
ordinarily been to a lady as went "hout by 'erself." 
But the Fraulein told her that she had come all the 
way from Munich to bring me, and that my friends 
were to meet me in London, and so she thinks I am 
" quality " ; and would I 'ave this berth or that? This 
one would '^ perhaps 'ave too much hair" for me. 
('^ The best one I could go into," thinks I to myself.) 

At last I persuaded her to let me have a stateroom 
in the gentlemen's cabin, out of which the den called 
ladies' cabin opens, and not a stateroom in it ! Think 
of that, woman's rights people ! So I am to pay for 
two berths, and for once in my life count as good as 
two men! 

^' Who are you, who are you, I should hke to know? " 
screamed out a great gray parrot in a cage above the 
table. Then a canary-bird, in another cage, set up the 
shrillest sort of song before I could reply to the parrot, 
and " Can't you speak, — don't you know your name ? " 
said the parrot; ''I'm pretty Poll, — pretty Poll; 
what 's your name ? " 

" Well," thought I, " you 're very funny for once, but 
eighteen hours of you will be quite too much," and I 
curled myself up on a sofa, and rolled my feet up in a 
blanket, and thought I would take a nap before the 
boat started. The steward and clerk and stewardess 
were eating their breakfast in the outer cabin, and 
looking at me through the open door. 

" Dirty weather," said the steward. 

'^Yes, beastly," said the stewardess, "but the cap- 
tain says there 's no use waiting; it won't be any 
better to-morrow." 

This was cheerful. I, in my innocence, thought it 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 289 

only a quiet drizzle, but I see it is going to be another 
affair when we get outside. 

Presently I heard the gayest little bird-laugh in the 
cabin, and ^' Dear mamma, let me come with you." 
" No, dear, stay there till I come back " ; and a tall, 
fair English lady came into the cabin, looking for her 
berths. She had a sweet voice and face, and the little 
girl's voice was like a bird's. In a few moments more 
the little thing came tripping in. Such a head of curls, 
and such gray eyes, and such a jolly little straw hat 
tipped on one side of her head ! I involuntarily ex- 
claimed, " you dear little lady ! " She skipped along, 
laughing, and took no notice of me. 

'' Do you like the steamboat ? " said I, as she ran 
about, looking into every corner. 

" Yes," said she, quite shortly, and then, turning back 
suddenly, she said, " How dare you look out that way ! " 
I could not imagine what she meant, and I said, " I 
don't understand you ; look out what way ? " 

''Why, at me," she said; "you shouldn't stare. I 
hate staring people." 

Fancy me ! I laughed till the tears rolled, and then 
I said : " I '11 tell you why I stared so. It is because 
I love little children so much. When I see a little boy 
or girl coming, I can't help looking at them. Is n't 
that a good reason ? " 

'' Yes," she said, reflectively, looking a little appeased, 
'^ but I hate staring people." 

However, she came up close to me presently, and put 
her little cold paws on mine, and said, pointing to my 
bag and bundle, which were at my feet, " You can't 
have those in here ; it is not allowed, I am quite sure." 

'' my ! " said I ; " how old are you ? " 

" Three and a quarter," said she, dancing off and 
laughing. Then she grew quite friendly, and invited 
me to go with her and look at the little bed in their 
corner ; and then her mamma bundled her up, and 
took her on deck, for it has stopped raining, and for 
13 B 



290 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 

people who have not horrible colds that is the best 
place. 

Then came a stir at the door, and a man appeared 
bringing in his arms a girl, perhaps twenty years old, 
with the most glorious auburn hair I ever saw. Two 
other girls followed with pillows and bundles, and all 
the paraphernalia of an invalid. 0, such a terrible time 
as it was to get her into the narrow berth I There was 
evidently a mystery about it all. One sister whispered 
to the stewardess, who grew frightened-looking at 
once, and the other sister held the invalid's hands, and 
a fearful instinct seized me that the girl was insane. 
How I pitied the poor elder sister who had her in 
charge ! I never saw a difficult place better filled. 
There is a gentleman with them, who is either brother 
or doctor, I cannot make out which. They are G-er- 
mans, but speak English perfectly. She is quiet, but 
looks wildly about from time to time. Then came in a 
great sofa, which they are carrying about with them, and 
then a trunk, which must be there too, and the whole 
cabin hardly big enough to turn round in. How that 
elder girl did manage the stewardess, and how I did 
thank my stars that I had secured a stateroom in the 
outer cabin ! Next were produced from the trunk 
three long narrow black bags, like umbrella cages, and 
'^ Has the ice been brought on board ? " said they. 
" yes, mum, the hice is 'ere," said the stewardess. 

" Well, these bags are for sea-sickness, to prevent 
sea-sickness, to be applied to the spine," said the 
elder young lady, and then followed the drollest sort 
of a discussion between the stewardess and her. I 
had to put my veil over my face. 

" Well, mum, I '11 put the hice in, but the screwing 
up part of it you '11 'ave to do yourself; and if you all 
gets bad to once, I don't know who '11 be a puttin' of 
these 'ere to your speingsy 

Then came in a pretty G-erman woman, with a nurse 
and baby, and, '* Stewardess, if I am sick, will you 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 291 

just take my baby a little ; and a few drops of tMs in 
the bottle if he is hungry." 

At this crisis I picked myself out and came away. 
The stewardess put my bag and shawl in my stateroom, 
and I said to her, " I fear you are going to have a terrible 
night, stewardess, with the sick lady and the baby." 

" Well, mum, you may well say so, and /am to feed 
the baby, you know, while the nurse keeps quiet in her 
berth," with a toss of her head ; " it 's more than 'uman 
nature can bear sometimes, is it, in these ships, mum, 
and the poor young lady is not right in her 'ead, and 
it 's such nasty weather." 

Luckily there are only two other ladies in the cabin 
besides those I have named, but I do not see .... 

London, Monday^ 18th. — In less than an hour after 
that last sentence, I was the sickest mortal you ever saw. 
Heaven forbid that I should tell you the horrors of that 
voyage ! From twelve o'clock Saturday noon till twelve 
o'clock Sunday noon, I lay in my berth in a condition 
of which I never even conceived. Never but once have 
they known so rough a passage. There was no real 
danger, they said, but the misery ! Now, at last, I 
know what sea-sickness means. Except that the cap- 
tain said it never could be so bad on the Atlantic Ocean, 
I would never come home. The channel boils all ways 
at once. You are lifted endwise, sidewise, and whopped 
over in a second. For six hours every wave hit the 
boat like an iron wall, and broke over it ; the winds 
howled like devils ; and the sailors' cries sounded like 
the wails of lost spirits ; and till eleven o'clock at night 
that fiendish parrot never stopped its silly screeching ! 

At one o'clock, Sunday noon, I landed; at three I 

was eating cold mutton and drinking ale in the E s's 

pleasant parlor, and had forgotten all about the sea- 
sickness, so like a miracle does it pass off Then in the 

evening came darling S C and stayed till 

eleven o'clock. Think of the good luck of my just 
catching her 1 She and Miss F go to Paris to-day. 



292 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 

It is so dark I can but just see at this writing, — about 
two in the afternoon. Howie, the dear httle fellow, 
says, " 0, this is nothing ! You should have seen the 
fog last week. They lit candles at twelve of the noon'' 

Now, London! It looks well; all but weather, and 
that I knew I could not get. I have a lovely little par- 
lor and bedroom, and the E s also have a parlor 

and two bedrooms, and we are to buy our beef and 
mutton, and the landlady has it cooked. 

" Economical Funeral " was one of the first signs 
I saw yesterday, as I drove up from the boat ! 

Fifteen letters awaited me here ! Bless you, all who 
Wrote. Good by. Peace be with you. 



P. S. — Particulars of the eclipse next time. It is n't 
quite so dark as I thought it would be. 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 



293 



Great Malvern, December 13, 1869. 

DEAR PEOPLE: How shall I make my tale of 
bricks this time, having come away from all sorts 
of straw ? But you will none of you believe me if I 
say there is nothing to write about in Malvern ; and 
you will all of you be vexed with me if I send you, for 
once, a short letter. It has just dawned upon me that 
I have spoiled you horribly in this one year. It is 
high time I left off my monthly sermon, I know just 
how the ministers feel on Friday : I see the fifteenth 
standing and staring me in the face just like a Sunday, 
and for the life of me I can't, as the children say, 
^' think of anything to say ! " But now, as I go on, 
a misgiving seizes me that I am the one who is 
spoiled after all, thinking that there is nothing worth 
telling you about because I am not up to my ears in 
sights of the technical order. Yes, I am the one who 
is spoiled, and I am ashamed of myself — here in this 
lovely, quiet, green English country, and on such a 
hillside as you may look America through for and not 
find — to have said there was nothing to tell you. 

To tell the truth, I have just come to you from read- 
ing the saga of G-rettir the Strong, translated by dear, 
delicious William Morris; and somehow to-day the 
simply being alive, and not killing anybody, nor saihng 
across any sea, seems not worth speaking about, unless 
there were Morris and Magnussen to tell it in fashion 
of sagas. 

Well, now I '11 go and get the Malvern G-uide, and 
see what it says about Malvern. I hate to leave my 
fire a minute, and I don't know where the book is ; but 
it is somewhere about the house, and unless I have that 



294 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER, 



open before me, I shall be sure to tell some lie or other 
about ''.... feet above the sea," etc. 

'^ Malvern, so interesting to the geologist, lover of 
nature, botanist, and antiquarian, possesses unique and 
attractive historical reminiscences. In ancient medi- 
aeval, as well as modern times, the tall brow of its bard- 
hill was an object of much interest." '' The town of 
Malvern strangely contrasts with that vulgar succession 
of streets, courts, alleys, etc., that are usually so denom- 
inated. In place of streets it has a succession of fashion- 
able mansions ; in place of courts and alleys it has vil- 
las, crescents, and terraces ; and, though town in fkct, it 
is little like one in external aspect. It has few build- 
ings consecutively joined together, and consists chiefly 
of separate and distinct residences." 

There are one hundred and seventy-two pages of 
this, my people ! Think of my having thoughtlessly 
said there was nothing to be told about Malvern, 
and yet this valuable work had been lying for two 
weeks on my table. I am more than ever impressed by 
the style of it, as I look it over with a view of making 
quotations. Some slight ambiguities I observe, here and 
there, owing to the size of the words, which appear to 
overlap each other a little. For instance, to a practical 
mind it might occur that it would be troublesome get- 
ting about in a town where there were no streets, and 
only " a succession of fashionable mansions." But sleighs 
drawn by reindeer, after the pattern of that in which 
Darley drew St. Nicholas, glide without difficulty over 
th^ chimney-tops ; and for pedestrian excursions stilts, 
made by the boot-maker of Jack's giant, enable us to 
step over the '^ villas and residences " which obstruct 
our way. 

" Another feature that greatly distinguishes the cli- 
mate of Malvern is the perfect dryness and elasticity 
of the air." 

Here the ambiguity which characterizes the style of 
the author of the Malvern Gruide seems really, though 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 



295 



I shrink from saying anything harsh, to run into some- 
thing which IS usually called by a severer name. I have 
only been in the tov^n three v^eeks, to be sure, so per- 
haps my observations are too limited to be set against 
his ; but it is fourteen days now since we have seen the 
sun, except for one half-hour day before yesterday, and 
another this morning. On all those fourteen days the 
whole county of Worcestershire, which lies spread out 
in a beautiful meadow map below Malvern, has been 
wrapped in impenetrable fogs, which much of the time 
have climbed the hill, walling our house in with a dead- 
white sort of ground-glass-looking substance, which 
has slowly oozed and trickled and drizzled down on the 
tops of our umbrellas, without which we have never 
been out. Had enough guide-book ? Then I '11 tell 
you why w^e came, and when. 

We came up on the 22d November, five days after I 
mailed my last letter to you. That was the when. And 
the why ? Because we were persuaded that if we were 
only once well washed in our lives we should become 
as little children. 

I came on ahead by a few hours and looked up lodg- 
ings. Ah, my people, don't believe one word you hear 
written or said against '' lodgings " ! It is the ideal 
way of living, and England is the country of comfort. 
If I were to set forth, in as glowing language as I 
might, how comfortable we are, you would all say, "0, 
that is only her enthusiastic way of describing things ; 
it can't be as she says ! " But listen now to naked 
facts. 

We are in one of the houses in Malvern, but whether 
it is a ''mansion" or a "villa" or a '"residence," I 
don't know. It is called, however, ^' Holyrood House." 
So perhaps it is something grander than any of those 
three other kinds. At any rate, it is n't a "crescent" 
or a " terrace." I am sure of that. Holyrood House 
is kept by Mr. and Mrs. Brown, who have been, I 
think, chief* butler ^nd housekeeper in some noble 



296 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 

family in days gone by. There are five apartments in 
it; that is, there are five sitting-rooms, with bed- 
rooms to match, — some with one, some with two. 

I pay for a nice httle parlor and bedroom, and a 
blazing coal-fire all day in each, twenty-eight shil- 
lings a week ($ 7 in gold). Think of that, ye un- 
fortunate New-Yorkers, who could n't get a back-stoop 

in Sixth Avenue for that money. The E s have a 

parlor and two bedrooms on the same floor for ten 
shillings more. 

We pay three shillings and sixpence for the kitchen 
fire ; we pay one shilling a week for the hall gas. 
Then we buy what we want to eat, and Mrs. Brown 
cooks it for us ; and we have our own private table 
and especial housekeeping and undisturbed life, just as 
safe and secure as if we were in a great house all to 
ourselves, with five servants. We pay for the washing 
of each thing we use, table and bedroom linen ; so we 
can have all we like. The service is admirable. 
the quiet and order and gentleness of these English 
servants ! It is as good as soothing-syrup to tired 
nerves to see them moving about. The china and 
silver are all not only good, but nice and pretty and 
abundant. We can have three or four friends to tea 
as satisfactorily as in our own house, and thus far it 
has never cost us over one pound a week each for the 
living, aside from the rent. 

How in the world the down-stairs part of it is man- 
aged, I cannot imagine. Why we don't eat Dr. Mau- 
prat's butter, and the Kev. Mr. Dickey does n't get our 
herring, is a mystery to me. But Mrs. Brown says I 
may go down stairs some day, and see her pantry, 
and then I shall understand. She has shelves numbered 
with the numbers of the rooms, and our cold mutton is 
always set in our corner, above our sugar, and below 
our bread and carrots. When I get the exact run of it, 
I shall write an article for the Independent about the 
system, in the wild, baseless hope of setting somebody 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRA VELLER. 



297 



to do likewise in America. Think of the contrast be- 
tween the privacy, comfort, and economy of such an 
aiTangement as this, and the dens of high-priced misery 
called boarding-houses, in New York or Boston. It is 
a bewildering thing that we in America, with every 
facility for being more comfortable than any other 
nation in the world, should be less so in this one mat- 
ter of living. If into these comfortable, well-ordered 
English lodging-houses could be brought our Indian 
corn, our oysters, our squashes, our poultry, our toma- 
toes, our apples, our cracked wheat, and if through 
their great clean windows could shine our sun, life, so 
far as the body goes, would be perfect. I remember, 
before I came abroad, I used every now and then to 
read in the papers a despairing wail from somebody or 
other about the superiority of the foreign methods of 
living in apartments in comparison with boarding, but 
I never quite believed it. I thought there would prove 
to be a screw loose somewhere when I came to try it ; 
and so there is, for that matter, when it is in Eome that 
you do it, and have to have your dinner come in on a 
man's head, from a horrible " trattoria." It is not abso- 
lute perfection, either, in Munich, even in my beloved 
Fraulein's house, where, do her best, she cannot be 
other than a German cook. I believe it is only in old 
England that the climax of success is reached ; and, 
my people, you should taste the mutton ! Can't you 
believe that a sheep that had eaten purple thyme 
steadily for four months would taste marvellously well 
at the end of that time ? I have seen as good roast 
beef in America as can be bought here, say what they 
will about their national dish ; but mutton ! Give up ! 
We never tasted it in America. I did not know what 
it could be. And they broil it, too, friends, if it is 
in the shape of a chop you have it. Even in the little 
inns in out-of-the-way places, where you stop for a 
lunch, your chop is broiled, and your plate is hot. A. 
fried chop on a cold plate, — that perpetual insult, that 
13* 



2gS ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 

anchristian outrage, which pursues the traveller in ]^ew 
iEngland, from Monday morning till Saturday night, — 
it would make an English landlord stand still in wonder 
to see. 

A week ago last Friday we drove over to a lovely 
little village eight miles from Malvern, went to the 
village church, roamed about the graveyard, and dined 
at the inn. From the outside of it we felt misgiving, 
it was so very small and humble. The whole village 
street had not more than twenty houses, and they were 
the houses of laborers. Our dinner was laid in the one 
room beside the kitchen, — bare wooden floor, wooden 
settle, wooden chairs, old cherry sideboard, tin}^ Httle 
windows high up in the wall ; but the landlord pinned 
on a white napkin to wait on us, and served us with 
the ease of an old butler, — broiled chops, broiled bacon, 
potatoes white and mealy to the point of crumbling, 
good bread, delicious butter, home-brewed ale, and a 
hoi apple-tart, whose crust would not have dishonored 
any table, and whose flavor of lemon and mace might 
well be remembered among the apple-tarts of one's 
youth. 0, how we abused our native land round that 
table, when the landlord was out of the room ! how 
we said to each other, '' Fancy the dinner we should 
have had in any New England town no larger than 
this, — the soggy potatoes, the saleratus bread, the 
pickles, the doughnuts, and the gravy ! Who will head 
a subscription for Blot's lectures to be delivered through- 
out the land, and the governors to compel all heads of 
families to attend ? Who will lift up her voice, or his, 
and write, write, write in all newspapers till we have 
better things to eat ? Now slavery is no more, we 
might be free from dyspepsia ! " So we said ; and then 
we went over to call at the vicar's house, he having 
politely asked us to lunch with him, fearing we might 
not be well fed at the inn ; and we found him a pale, 
sickly, dyspeptic-looking man, just having taken a 
yrishy cup of tea, and an ^gg^ and some dark-looking 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TEA VELLER. 



299 



l)read and white butter. Were n't we glad we did n't 
accept his invitation to lunch, if his page did have 1,733 
buttons on the front of his body ? 

But I have run on in a way befitting ''gluttons and 
wine-bibbers." You would not wonder, however, if 
you knew what it was to come into luxurious eating 
and drinking after having hved a year on old stones 
and oil paint. I think I shall not escape for some 
months from a perpetual sort of undercurrent of con- 
sciousness, like a refrain to a song which won't get out 
of one's head, " Beef, mutton, oatmeal, oatmeal, mut- 
ton, beef"; and as for the fires, I shall spend half 
my time, till spring, poking them to see the flames 
shoot up. 

Now I will tell you a little of the routine of the 
life of a water-cure patient ; a water-cure impatient 
would be nearer the truth. Life under the water-treat- 
ment is a series of interruptions, unbuttonings and but- 
tonings up, and we all know what drove that Fre^nch- 
man to suicide. Interruption first is of your morning 
naps. If one is to be packed in wet sheets for one 
hour, dress, and walk for fifteen minutes, and then sit 
still for fifteen minutes, all before a nine-o'clock break- 
fast, it is plain, to be sure, that quarter before seven is 
the latest possible minute for beginning. Quarter be- 
fore seven is an hour and a quarter before fight just 
now, even on this eastern hifiside, which gets the first 
wink of the sun. When Annie, the silent chamber- 
maid, with a smutty Honiton-lace cap on her head, 
comes into my room at half past six to make my fire, 
I always think that somethmg has happened in the way 
of accident, and that I am being summoned in a hurry. 
" Annie, what is the matter ? " I said regularly for 
the first ten days, but now I only groan, "0 Annie I " 
This is the only thing I do not like in the water- treat- 
ment. To be waked up out of sleep has always seemed 
to me a crowning insult and outrage to Nature. 

Then comes Maria, my good bath-woman, for whom 



300 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 

I have already conceived a sentiment nine parts venera- 
tion and one affection. Of course I can't help lovins 
her a little, she is so kind and energetic in my behalf, 
so generally good-natured and straightforward, and so 
sure I shall get to be a giant of strength and health. 
But, dear me, my love is so put upon by my awe I 
This woman, of hke passions with myself, and not much 
older, who comes three times a day into my presence as 
the representative of a system from which I can no more 
escape than I can from grim death; authoritative as 
Dr. Grully himself; no more mindful of my naked and 
helpless body than was the mother who bore me when- 
ever I needed washing or whipping ! — laughing at my 
screams ; holding her old snail of a watch in her hand, 
and declaring it is only four minutes when I say it must 
be ten, — 0, we have very funny times together, Maria 
and 1 1 She little dreams how my soul is on its marrow- 
bones before her. When she says, " Indeed, mum, you 
mus' n't," I no more think of persisting than if Parha- 
ment were at her back ; and when she looks at me re- 
flectively as she ties on a compress over the " upper 
stomach " (did you know we had more than one ? 
I keep forgetting to ask Dr. Grully if camels have the 
most, or we) I feel as if her glance reached the inmost 
secrets of my bosom, and she must know all about the 
lies I told, and never got found out in, in my infancy. 
" Maria," said I, '^ did you ever see two human bodies 
alike ? " one day when I felt a little sentimental, and 
was thinking more than ever how she was getting pos- 
session of me in all this wet and dry scrubbing. '^ 
Lor, mum, I s'pose not, for the matter of that, if you 
looked close. But they 're all alike to me. Not but 
what I 'd rather rub the fat ones than they that 's all 
bones," she added, reflectively, with a half-chuckle and 
ei^h, I suppose at the thought of some recent vertebrae 
that she had scraped her hands over. Fourteen years 
she has been at it, this faithful soul ; and she has given 
out and away so much of her own animal heat and 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRAVELLER. 



301 



electric vital force that she is not strong as she was. 
My own theory is, that half the benefit comes from the 
splendid rubbing after the baths. It sets every nerve 
and pore in your skin on to the full gallop of doing their 
duty. Well, as I say, this getting into a whole or a 
part ^'pack " is your morning interruption. Then you 
turn over, mummy that you are, and look out and 
watch the dawn, if you are a person of nerves, with 
the most delicious sense of being under no more respon- 
sibility about yourself for the next hour than if you 
were one of the fleecy clouds which are drifting in the 
w^ind. If you are of adipose make, you go to sleep 
again, and at the end of an hour have another inter- 
ruption, and are ordered into a '•^ shallow, " that is, a 
long bath-tub with six inches of water in it, — at 65°, if 
the doctor is merciful; "stone-cold," if he isn't. I 
have mine at 65°. Into this you are plunged, smoking 
hot, and for one or two minutes are scrubbed with 
towels ; then out, and rubbed for ten or fifteen minutes 
more, till you are " red as a rose is she," by the author 
of '' Cometh up as a Flower " ! Then you hurry on 
your clothes, and take a walk of ten or fifteen or thirty 
minutes before breakfast. This was the one thing I 
thought I could never do ; " never had been ohle to^'' as 
women always say to the long-sufiering doctor, who 
knows a thousand times better than they do. But al- 
ready I like it so much that I think I shall never agaia 
breakfast on food before I have had a httle breakfast on 
air; I walk, usually on the piazza, — for Holyrood House 
has a fine piazza on two sides, one looking off eastward 
over this glorious great valley. There are three ravens 
which always come at this time, and flap and bustle 
about in a great bare linden-tree in the garden. They 
usually arrive about five minutes after I do ; never have 
missed a morning yet. What they are at, I can't make 
out, but there is a solemn jollity or jolly solemnity about 
their behavior that interests me mightily. They would 
do for Odin's two ravens, " Thought and Memory/' if I 



302 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRA VELLER. 



were bent on romantic sentiment at that hour in the 
morning. 

At half past twelve, noon, just as I get well under 
way with my writing, comes second interruption, — 
Maria's head, peering round the corner of my parlor 
door, and " If you please, mum." Then it is either 
" spinal washing," that is, the washing of the whole 
length of the spine with cold water for four minutes, — > 
the most delicious thing of all, making your brain feel 
as suddenly fine and clear as if it had been changed in 
a second from curds to spun glass ; or a " lamp bath," 
which is, sitting in a wooden chair, rolled up in several 
hundred-weight of blankets, and a spirit-lamp burning 
you up from underneath, till you are drenched in per- 
spiration, and then out into a "shallow " of cold water, 
and scrubbed and rubbed as in the morning. This ia 
about like a Turkish Bath. 

Or a rose douche, or the inch-and-a-half douche, or 
the two together ! 

These are infinitely surprising, I cannot say pleasing. 
I took them but twice ; they did not suit me. These 
cannot be taken at home. You go to the bath-house, 
undress in one cupboard, then step into another, which 
is set with mysterious bars and pulleys and faucets, re- 
minding one of Nuremberg torture-dungeons. You 
have to let the thing on yourself, for the bath-woman 
would get wet if she came in. Perhaps you think you 
can thereby play possum, and not take the full force of 
the water. Ha ! there is a small round hole in the wall, 
between inner and outer cupboard, and there glares, like 
the palpable eye of Omniscience, the eye of Maria! 
''Indeed, mum, you must stay under ! " and back you 
bob as spry and guilty as if you 'd been caught steal- 
ing. If you think you know what the real duration of 
a minute is, you 're mistaken, unless you have had a 
stream of water an inch and a half in diameter fall on 
your back and loins for that length of time, and you 
wanting to "stand from under," and not daring to. 



ENCYCLICALS OF A TRA VELLER. 



303 



Sitting before a daguerreotype man after you have 
" assumed an easy and natural expression" is less than 
nothing to it. Whichever of these or other noon treat- 
ments you undergo v^ill take, all told, an hour. Then 
you must walk from half an hour to an hour. Then 
dinner. Then a little lounging and talking, and then, 
perhaps, you go to make a call on a friend, and as you 
are just in the midst of a fine talk, she says, " Now, I 
know, as you are a patient yourself, you will excuse me, 
but my bath-woman has come for me to take a foot- 
bath." '^ dear!" say you, "then probably my wo- 
man is at this moment waiting for me." Sure enough, 
it is half past five o'clock, and you are now to sit for 
twelve minutes in a sitz-bath-tub of water at 65°. and 
then have a little more scrubbing. Then you dress for 
the evening, eat a good supper, and by nine o'clock are 
so sleepy, you wish you had gone to bed immediately 
after the sitz-bath, and made that second undressing 
answer. 

This is an average routine of an average patient at 
the present day under the water-treatment. The old 
horrors and severities are done away with, unless it may 
be in some of the G-erman establishments, where tor- 
tures are still in vogue. Also the diet is no more re- 
stricted than it ought to be for all Christians in or out 
of water-treatment. We can eat anything we ought 
to like, and we do eat. Such hunger as results from 
it all, and from the electric Malvern air ! We misgive 
whether a pound a week will feed us much longer. 

We are a little concerned about our Christmas. Our 
English cronies are going away before that time, and 
we sha' n't be asked out to dinner, we know. We have 
bought big boughs of mistletoe to hang up over our 
doors, and propose to kiss each other under it. It is 
an uncanny, scrambling-looking thing. I am a little 
afraid of its spidery shape, but the berries are lovely. 
If a white currant were to marry a snowberry, their 
babies would be like these. Now do you know how 



J04 ENCYCLICALS OF A TRA VELLER. 

they look ? You see through them, and you don't ; 
they quiver, and yet are firm-planted as the bough it- 
self; they are uncanny too, like the rest. 

We have thought of putting an advertisement in the 
newspapers to the following effect : — 

" An intelhgent American family would like to spend 
the Christmas holidays in an English house, where the 
Christmas customs and festivities will be well observed. 
No objection to noblemen." 

But I fear it is now too late. Some dear English 
souls in London want us, but that is too far. So we 
shall console ourselves by having a plum-pudding, and 
trying to keep little Howie from realizing that he is all 
alone for a holiday. Grood by. 



THE EKD. 



Bits of Travel at Home 

By H. H. 

Square i8mo. Cloth, red edges. Price $i.y>. 



**Mrs. Helen Hunt is too well and favorably known to need introduction to 
American readers. Her poems are among the most thoughtful, vigorous^ and 
truly imaginative this country has produced. She is a poet to the manner born, 
and something of the poetic touch and quality enters into her prose writings. Her 
*Bits of Travel,' published years ago, gave charming accounts of places and 
scenes and experiences in Europe. Her ' Bits of Talk' were full of wise and 
useful suggestions put in exceedingly felicitous ways; they had the sweetnes«i 
and bloom of life's morning with the insight and practicality of its mid-day. Her 
other books have each widened her literary reputation. The little volume of * Bits 
of Travel at Home' is in her best vein. It tells something of New England, but 
is chiefly devoted to California and Colorado. She both describes and paints, and 
she intersperses her sketches of nature with cha/ming pictures of human life on 
the frontier and in the new communities springing up there. All through the 
closely printed book are delicate little bits of description, cropping up like flowers 
in a meadow, which the reader lingers over, and the reviewer longs to pluck for a 
bouquet of quotations. It is a charming book for summer reading, and will make 
many a dull day brighter by its vivacity and beauty. She gives five sunrises from 
her calendar in Colorado, and closes her volume as follows : ' O emperor, wilt 
thou not build an eastern wing to thy palace and set thy bed fronting the dawn I 
And by emperor I mean simply any man to whom it is given to make himself a 
home ; and by palace I mean any house, however small, in which love dwells and 
on which the sun can shine.' " — A^. V. Express. 

"A charming volume. Those that remember — and who that read the book 
will forget — the grace, the freshness, the bright, piquant charm of the first Bits^ 
will be glad to have an opportunity to read a new volume by a writer remarkable 
for her humor, her quaintness, and her pathos. Those that want a thoroughly 
enjoyable and entirely fascinating book are heartily recommended to this." — Cin- 
cinnati Times. 

*' The descriptions of American scenery in this volume indicate the imagination 
of a poet, the eye of an acute observer of Nature, the hand of an artist, and the 
heart of a woman. 

*' H. H.'s choice of words is of itself a study of color. Her picturesque diction 
rivals the skill of the painter, and presents the woods and waters of the Great 
West with a splendor of illustration that can scarcely be surpassed by the bright- 
est glow of the canvas. Her intuitions of character are no less keen than hef 
perceptions of Nature." — N, Y. Tribune- 



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VERSES. 

By H. H. 

A New Enlarged Edition, Square i^mo. Uniform with 
« Bits of Talk " and " Bits of Travel Price $l .00. 



"The volume is one which will make H. H. dear to all the lovers of true 
|>oetry. Its companionship will be a delight, its nobility of thought and of purpose 
an inspiration. . . . This new edition comprises not only the former little book 
with the same modest title, but as many more new poems. . . . The best critics 
have already assigned to H. H. her high place in our catalogue of authors. She 
is, without doubt, the most highly intellectual of our female poets. . . . The new 
poems, while not inferior to the others in point of literary art, have in them more 
of fervor and of feeling ; more of that lyric sweetness which catches the attention 
and makes the song sing itself over and over afterwards in the remembering brain. 
. . . Some of the new poems seem among the noblest H. H. has ever written. 
They touch the high-water mark of her intellectual power, and are full, besides, oi 
passionate and tender feeling. Among these is the * Funeral March.' " — N, Y. 
Tribune. 

•*A delightful book is the elegant little volume of 'Verses,' by H. H.,-« 
instinct with the quality of the finest Christian womanhood. . . . Some wives and 
mothers, growing sedate with losses and cares, will read many of these * Verses* 
with a feeling of admiration that is full of tenderness.'* —Advance. 

*' The poems of this lady have taken a place in public estimation perhaps 
higher than that of any living American poetess. . . . They are the thoughts of 
a delicate and refined sensibility, which views life through the pure, still atmos- 
phere of religious fervor, and unites all thought by the tender talisman of love." — 
Inter-Ocean. 

" Since the days of poor * L. E. L.,' no woman has sailed into fame under a 
flag inscribed with her initials only, until the days of*H. H.' Here> however, 
the parallehsm ceases ; for the fresh, strong beauty which pervades these * Verses* 
nas nothing in common with the rather languid sweetness of the earlier writer. 
Unless I am much mistaken, this enlarged volume, double the size of that origi- 
nally issued, will place its author not merely above all American poetesses and all 
Jiving English poetesses, but above all women who have ever written poetry in 
the English language, except Mrs. Browning alone. * H. H.' has not yet proved 
herself equal to Mrs. Browning in range of imagination ; but in strength and depth 
the American writer is quite the equal of the English, and in compactness anct 
Symmetry altogether her superior." — T. W. H. in The Index, 



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BITS OF TALK 

ABOUT HOME MATTERS. 

By H. H. 

Author of " Verses^^'* and ** Bits of TraveV* Squar§ 
iSmo, Cloth ^ red edges. Price, $i.oo. 



•* A New Gospel for Mothers. — We wish that e-«'ery mother In 
the land would read ' Bits of Talk about Home Matters,' by H. H., and 
that they would read it thoughtfully. The latter suggestion is, however, 
wholly unnecessary : the book seizes one's thoughts and sympathies, aa 
only startling truths presented with direct earnestness can do. . . . The 
adoption of her sentiments would wholly change the atmosphere in many 
a house to what it ought to be, and bring almost constant sunshine and 
bliss where now too often are storm and misery." — Lawrence {Kansas) 
Journal. 

" In the little book entitled * Bits of Talk,' by H. H., Messrs. Roberts 
Brothers have given to the world an uncommonly useful collection of 
essays, — useful certainly to all parents, and likely to do good to all chil- 
iren. Other people have doubtless held as correct views on the subjects 
treated here, though few have ever advanced them ; and none that we are 
aware have made them so attractive as they are made by H. H.'s crisp 
and sparkling style. No one opening the book, even though without rea- 
son for special interest in its topics, could, after a glimpse at its pages, 
lay it down unread ; and its bright and witty scintillations will fix many a 
precept and establish many a fact. * Bits of Talk ' is a book that ought 
to have a place of honor in every household ; for it teaches, not only the 
true dignity of parentage, but of childhood. As we read it, we laugh and 
cry with the author, and acknowledge that, since the child is father of 
the man, in being the champion of childhood, she is the champion of the 
whole coming race. Great is the rod, but H. H. is not its prophet I" — 
Af'^9. Harriet Prescott Spofford^ in Neivbiiryport Herald, 



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NELLY'S Silver Mine. 

By H. H. 

With Illustrations. i6mo, cloth. Price $1.50. 



" The sketches of life, especially of its odd and out-of-the-way aspects, by H. H. 
iflways possess so vivid a reality that they appear more like the actual scenes than 
any copy by pencil or photograph. They form a series of living pictures, radiant 
*with sunlight and fresh as morning dew. In this new story the fruits of her fine 
genius are of Colorado growth, and though without the antique flavor of her recol- 
lections of Rome and Venice, are as delicious to the taste as they are tempting to 
the eye, and afford a natural feast of exquisite quality." — N. Y. TribuTte. 

*' This charming little book, written for children's entertainment and instruc- 
tion, is equally delightful to the fathers and mothers. It is life in New England, 
an4 the racy history of a long railway journey to the wilds of Colorado. The 
children are neither imps nor angels, but just such children as are found in every 
happy home. The pictures are so graphically drawn that we feel well acquainted 
with Rob and Nelly, have travelled with them and climbed mountains and found 
silver mines, and know all about the rude life made beautiful by a happy family, 
and can say of Nelly, with their German neighbor, Mr. Kleesman, ' Ach well, she 
haf better than any silver mine in her own self.' " — Chicago Inter-Ocean. 

■*In *NelVs Silver Mine* Mrs. Helen Hunt Jackson has given us a true 
classic for the nursery and the school-room, but its readers will not be confined to 
any locality. Its vivid portraiture of Colorado life and its truth to child-nature 
give it a charm which the most experienced cannot fail to feel. It will stand by 
the side of Miss Edgeworth and Mrs. Barbauld in all the years to come." — Mrs, 
Caroline H. Dull. 

*• We heartily commend the book for its healthy spirit, its lively narrative, an^ 
ks freedom from most of the fauhs of books for children." —Atlantic Monthly. 



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RAMONA: A Story. 

By HELEN JACKSON (H. H\). 
i2mo Cioth. Price ^150 



71?^ Atlantic Morithly says of the author that she is **a MuriBc 
is literature," and that the story " is one of the most artistic 
creations of American literature." Says a lady: ''Tome it is the 
most distinctive piece of work we have had in this country since 

* Uncle Tom's Cab^n,' and its exquisite fiuish of style is beyond that 
Classic." '' The book is truly an American novel," says xYi& Boston 
Advertiser. " Ramoi^a is one of the nr.ost charming creations of 
modern fiction," says Charles D Warner "The romance of the 
story is irresistibly fascii^ating," says The Independent. 

" The best novel written by a woman siijce George Ehot died, as 
it seems to me, is Mrs. Jackson's * Ramona' What action is there J 
What motion ! How entrainant it is ! It carries us along as \i 
mounted on a swift horse's back, from beginning to end, and it is 
only when we return for a second reading that we can appreciate 
the fine handling of the characters, and especially the Spanish 
mother, drawn with a stroke as keen and irm as that which 
portrayed George Eliot's ' Dorothea.' " — T. W. Higgimon. 
Unsolicited tribute of a stranger, a lady in Wisconsin : — 
^' I beg leave to thank you with an mtense heartiness for yotir 
public espousal of the cause of the Indian. In your * Century of 
Dishonor ' you showed to the country its own disgrace. In 

* Ramona ' you have dealt most tenderly with the Indians as men 
and women. You have shown that their stoicism is not indiffer- 
ence, that their squalor is not always of their own choosing. You 
have shown the tender grandeur of their love, the endurance of 
their constancy. While, by ' Ramona,' you have made your name 
immortal, you have done something which is far greater You are 
but one: they are many. You have helped those who cannot help 
themselves. As a novel, *R.amona' must stand beside 'Romola,' 
both as regards literary excellence and the portrayal of life's deepest, 
most vital, most solemn interests, I think nothing in literature 
since Goldsmith's ' Vicar of Wakefield ' equals your description of 
the flight of Ramona and Alessandro. Such delicate pathos and 
tender joy, such pure concepiion of life's realities, and such loftiness 
of self-abnegating love ! How much richer and happier the world 
k^ with ' Ramona ' in it ! " 

H» 

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SONNETS AND LYRICS 

By HELEN JACKSON. 

One Volume. Square i6mo. Cloth. Unifor?7t with Mrs. yacksoii\s 
" Verses." Price, $i.oo. White cloth, gilt, price, $1.2^. 



This little (Tolumt is instinct with the vitality of the large-hearted and large- 
minded woman whose last work it contains. No verse could be further removed 
from the self-consciousness and artifice of what is sometimes known as the '' art 
school ; " and, on the other hand, no verse could be more entirely free from the 
unregulated overflow of emotion. ... It is sound in feeling and in art ; there 
is a wholesome, healthful tone running through the whole of it, from those earli- 
est lines published in the " Nation," under the title, so full of meaning to her, 
"Lifted Over," to that last splendid address to death in "Habeas Corpus." 
written on one of the last days of her conscious life. . . . In the verse contained 
in this latest volume there is the same full-pulsed love for all things beautiful : 
for mountains and clouds, for blue skies and wide seas, for the wild-floweirs 
hidden among the recesses of the rocks, and for the great stars that, for human 
eyes at least, mark the boundary lines of the universe. There is no aspect of the 
natural world from which Mrs. Jackson's large and masterful nature turned 
away with fear or repulsion. Winter stirs her imagination no less than summer, 
and in a sonnet on '* January '' she invokes it in lines that are full of deep per- 
ception of the beauty that lies hidden in its heart. — Christia7i Union. 

The spirit of the little book in which are brought together the last of her 
hitherto uncollected pieces is singularly gentle and winning, and it will strengthen 
the affection in which the memory of " H. H." is cherished by many hearts. — 
New York Tribune. -^ 



Sold by all booksellers. Mailed, post-paid^ by tht 
fublisherSy 

j LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY, 
D rJ ^ ^ i Boston. 

RD- 79. '' 



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